Memoirs
October 2, 2009
- Don't let me forget: I've got to mention that my new book is out--it's the Grateful Dead Scrapbook--and I'm giving it a light push; mainly at The Booksmith on Haight St. October 7 (a Wed.) at 7...Anyway: The Banned Books concert at the Main Library here in SF was fun, considering the subject was the censorship of books and other artistic works and expressions. It was partly the weather, which had ...
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September 22, 2009
- All of you writers and would-be writers who have never been sexually abused by your parents, suffered from domestic assault, been abandoned on a highway somewhere by grandparents when raising you got to be too much; any of you who have never suffered from anorexia or bulimia, are not cancer survivors, who have never had a child addicted to drugs, or lost a child before his time; those of you who ...
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September 12, 2009
- Well, this should be fun. Or a complete disaster. Either way, Alan Unger asked for it. He's a friend of mine, and husband of a long-time buddy, Ruby, who I knew from her nights as a talk show host on KCBS. For over a year, Alan's been after me to kick off a speaker series he was organizing at The Redwoods, a seniors center in Marin County. The idea was a good one: Show up and tell your story, ...
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July 20, 2009
- I'm tired of death. As Huntington pointed out to me the other day, people are always dying. However this summer it feels like many celebrities are dying. Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, Gale Storm—all have died in the past three weeks. Walter Cronkite died on Friday. Yesterday, another death made me so sad: Frank McCourt, the Pulitzer Prize winner of Angela's Ashes, died ...
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June 20, 2009
- Novelist/social satirist Christopher Buckley 's new memoir Losing Mum and Pup--is my suggested read for Father's Day...and beyond. Here's what it's about. In the course of a year (2007-2008), only-child Christo (his family nickname) lost both of his charismatic, extraordinary parents, Pat and Bill Buckley. If you read Vanity Fair and the New York Times and Washington Post society and/or ...
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May 27, 2009
- Yesterday, Clyde Haberman had an interesting piece about memoir writing in the New York Times. Naturally it caught my attention since I'm writing a memoir based on my spiritual journey, as well as the journey of buying back the home my ex and I had to sell in 2002 due to our divorce agreement. Here is one stand alone quote from Haberman's article:Memoirs bring money to the publishing ...
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May 26, 2009
- “Conversations with Teddy is a unique approach to telling the story of growing up in a dysfunctional family with egregious abuse – through the eyes a small girl who shares her secrets with her beloved teddy bear. Shirley has such a gift for putting her pain into words. This book would be an excellent tool for therapists to help their clients to learn to journal. I am so proud of you Shirley ...
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April 25, 2009
- Saltwater Buddha - by Jaimal Yogis You don’t have to be a surfer or a Buddhist to enjoy Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea. This coming-of-age memoir by San Francisco-based journalist Jaimal Yogis, with its crisp, clean prose and delightful self-deprecating tone, will pull in any reader who has ever yearned to learn something new as well as garner some spiritual ...
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April 4, 2009
- [JOURNAL ENTRY, JANUARY 2005:] Here in Shanghai, the golden city that attracts opportunity-seekers from all over the country, you see a vast range of Asian faces. There are the square, flat-planed ones from the north; the almond-eyed, somewhat Polynesian ones from the south; and some that are so Western-looking that you know a Russian fell into the gene pool somewhere along the line. There are ...
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April 4, 2009
- Between September 2004 and July 2005, my wife and I lived and worked in Shanghai. It was an experience I’ll never duplicate, no matter how long I may live. I was on sabbatical from my high school in South Jersey, where I teach English. When I first announced to my classes that I was going to the People’s Republic of China, many of my students couldn’t understand my reasons. I told them ...
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