memoir
November 3, 2009
- I met Brenda Miller at the Get Lit! festival this past April, almost two years after I first read her wonderful essay “Blessing of the Animals” in The Sun. I was reminded of the exquisite beauty of her writing when I heard her read and promptly devoured her new book (titled after that essay) as well as her first collection, Season of the Body. Brenda’s essays have been described as ...
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November 2, 2009
- I lost my father on a Sunday in the sixties when I was ten and he was fifty-four. He didn’t die. Despite a lifetime of non-filtered Camels and a high fat diet he was remarkably healthy physically. No, I lost him to a paranoid hate that I cannot decades later understand nor condone. The black and white RCA console television was crackling in a corner of the slightly ...
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November 1, 2009
- The recent societal bent towards navel-gazing has apparently reached its zenith with "Eat Pray Love," Elizabeth Gilbert's pseudo-memoir of self-discovery and seeking enlightenment. Or perhaps it was a shallow grope for the best-seller lists and Oprah's couch. Either way, it worked; her book has been on the best-seller lists for over two years now. But reading about this book ...
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October 29, 2009
- Research has shown that writing the truth, writing the stories from the heart, help to heal us not only mentally but physcially as well. Recent brain research proves the research first presented by Dr. James Pennebaker in his studies about the healing power of writing. It's important to allow yourself just to write your truth, without showing it to anyone, without asking for approval or for ...
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October 28, 2009
- This is where it gets ugly.Last week I zapped off the manuscript of my new novel to my agent in New York. My wife told me to get working on the next book. It’s not because she’s worried about me slacking off and failing to pay the rent. No, it’s because she knows what happens when I’m not writing.Ever read “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”? When I’m writing, I’m Dr ...
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October 28, 2009
- By now it’s no secret that the Iraq War has been a disillusioning experience for many of the U.S. servicemen sent there. The literature on the war has, so far, been mostly written by journalists. There’s plenty of it, and like most journalism it runs pretty mainstream and inoffensive, no matter how bloody the scenes depicted. But Michael Anthony, a veteran of the war, has a different ...
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October 22, 2009
- Thank you for checking my blog. I believe the best way to learn about me is through my personal vision and mission statement, which I authored in January 1996. For Myself: Using my gift of creativity and imagination, I will continue to invent the future by expressing my visions courageously in words and actions. I will always be a professional – honoring integrity, justice, kindness, and will ...
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October 21, 2009
- "Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels he belongs." Okay, so I'm not a man--but W. Somerset Maugham's words reflect the way I felt when I first arrived as an exchange student in Seville, Spain more than 25 years ago. I lived in the oldest part of the city, staying with two forty-something sisters named Ana and Paqui who shared an apartment with their ...
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October 17, 2009
- Letting Go Over the past month, I have shared my worries and excitement concerning the publication of my memoir. To be completely honest, I was unprepared for the emotional exhaustion that accompanies publication. I've been an emotional wreck. I fretted over the few copies of Musical Chairs that escaped with a few typos and the fear of eminent judgment and misinterpretation of my words, but ...
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October 15, 2009
- October is half over...That means it's almost November. Time, once again, for Write Nonfiction in November! Whoo hoo!I didn't manage to post a blog last month. I was too busy setting up some really great guest bloggers for this year's challenge. You'll be so pleased with the line up!And, to get things rolling, tomorrow you can listen to me talk about Write Nonfiction in November on The National ...
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