Tag Archives: writing

On Creative Writing and Curated Wisdom, Part II

30 Thursday Oct 2014

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CuratedWisdomIn August, I traveled to Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the very tip of Cape Cod, to attend a fiction and memoir workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center with my literary idol, Dani Shapiro. It was an intense week of work, discovery, and joy, a week in which I learned many new things and relearned a few others, not the least of which is the importance of keeping a writing journal.

Shapiro, like the most insightful physician you’ve ever encountered, honed in on our individual manuscripts, but only after each of us chimed in with our notes and comments, questions and praise. She always went last, offering keen observations from her vast experience as a writer and teacher, and reading choice excerpts—carefully chosen to apply to the work at hand—from her small notebook, what she calls her book of “curated wisdom.” For example:

Read the rest of this essay on Boomeon …

…and read Part I here.

 

Yes, I’m Still Writing—and You Can Read Me on Boomeon

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in The Writing Life

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BE-BloggerBadgeI’m pleased to announce that I’m contributing to a nifty website for Baby Boomers, Midlifers, People-of-a-Certain-Age, what have you. Boomeon is a new-ish online community for Baby Boomers and beyond. The site’s marketing director, Natalie Dewhirst, says that Boomeon wanted to create a supportive and safe environment where people can be student and teacher, author and reader, adventurer and observer. Boomeon has created a new section on creativity, and I’m thrilled to write the inaugural essay.

“On Creative Writing and Curated Wisdom” was inspired by my recent stay in Provincetown, where I took a workshop with novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro. Part II of the essay will appear on Boomeon in a couple of weeks. If you want to be sure not to miss it, please visit my profile page and click “Follow” at the bottom.

I hope to see you there! And I’ll still check in here from time to time, although (as you might have noticed) I’m blogging less and writing more. That book’s not going to write itself, now is it?

As always, thank you for your support…and for reading me!

Dani Shapiro's wonderful book, Still Writing, is always near my side.

Dani Shapiro’s wonderful book, Still Writing (far left on my shelf), is always close at hand.

 

 

Erma Bombeck: No Ordinary Woman

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in Inspiring Women, The Writing Life

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Forgive me for what I am about to write, because, in the wake and afterglow of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, I risk sacrilege: Erma Bombeck was not what she portrayed herself to be. I submit, for proof, this statement, in the humorist’s own words:

OrdinaryErmapsd

From Suzette Martinez Standring’s PowerPoint presentation at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Conference: “Staying Power Advice from Top Opinion Columnists.”

 I wondered what I had that was unique and ironically enough, I discovered something. I was ordinary, painfully middle of the road, bare boned Ohio Midwest beige, Our Town ordinary…

While it is true that Erma Bombeck wrote about the ordinary, mundane details and events of her life, only an extraordinary writer and person could have taken that ordinary turf and seeded it into fertile mountains of gold. By keeping her ear to the common ground—daily life and love in the realm of domesticity—Bombeck harvested an astonishing legacy as a humorist, writer, columnist, journalist, and television personality. Her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, celebrates her legacy every two years on the campus of the University of Dayton, at the writer’s conference and festival that bears her name. I was lucky; I was one of the 350 attendees from across the U.S. and Canada smart enough to register before the event sold out. In 12 hours.

It takes an extraordinary woman to remain married to the same man for decades, raise three children (all of whom were present at the festival), walk the walk of feminism (she was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment), write and publish, and keep her voice pure and true. No. Erma Bombeck, taken from us much too soon at the age of 69, was as far from ordinary as Dubai is from Dayton.

According to the Bombeck workshop website, http://www.humorwriters.org, Bombeck’s syndicated column, “At Wit’s End,” appeared in more than 900 newspapers. She wrote twelve books, nine of which were on the The New York Times’ bestseller list. She appeared regularly ABC-TV’s Good Morning America for 11 years. She was still writing her column for Universal Press Syndicate and developing a new book for Harper Collins Publishers when she died from complications of a kidney transplant on April 22, 1996.

I believe Erma Bombeck deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as another Ohio-born humorist—James Thurber.

When I was entering adulthood in the 1970s, I read and treasured two of her most famous books: If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits? and The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank. Her writing, while hilarious, also made me feel as though I were reading the work of a good friend. That was her special gift, I think. Everyone felt that they knew Erma, and at the conference, everyone did. Her spirit was everywhere, most especially during Phil Donahue’s first-night keynote address. Donahue and Erma lived on the same street in the Dayton suburb of Kettering when both were just starting their careers. Bombeck, then a journalist for the Kettering-Oakwood Times, interviewed Donahue, then an announcer at radio station WHIO in Dayton. A lifelong friendship developed, and the moving eulogy that Donahue delivered at Bombeck’s funeral, which he shared with the audience, encapsulates the honesty, humor, and utter lack of pretense that was Erma Bombeck.

I had an opportunity after dinner to tell Donahue that I loved what he said about Erma, and to present him with two original photographs from the days when his father-in-law, entertainer Danny Thomas, was raising funds for what would eventually become St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. My father was a local fundraiser from Elyria, Ohio, and a huge benefit was held at a Cleveland hotel ballroom in April 1961.

MarciRichwithPhilDonahue

There’s so much more that I want to share with you about the conference—what I learned, who I saw, how I managed to navigate the campus with my knee-scooter and the help of the incredibly supportive staff at the University of Dayton—that I’ll likely have to write another post or two. For now, to keep up with all the conference news, I invite you to go on Twitter and follow hashtag #EBWW2014. You can also follow me there—here’s my handle: @midlife2wife. I’m still tweeting about the conference, so you won’t miss a thing!

I’d write more now, but I have some chores to do around the house. You do know what Erma said about housework, don’t you?

Housework, if done right, can kill you.

So please check up on me via Twitter and here at the blog to make sure that I survived my to-do list.

On the Road to Dayton for the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in The Writing Life

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Image courtesy of the University of Dayton. Used with permission.

If you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen more posts from me here, it’s because I’ve been preoccupied with work on a book project. I’m not abandoning the blog, mind you, otherwise I wouldn’t be here writing to you now! But because there are just so many hours in a day and days in a week, I’ve had to redirect my energies a bit. I’m stopping by now to tell you that I’m attending the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, this weekend. I’m looking forward to two-and-a-half days of workshop sessions and making connections with other writers, and I’m especially happy to have been one of approximately scribes who managed to book her registration on opening day, since the workshop sold out in a record 12 hours.

Is there anyone in the world who doesn’t know about Erma Bombeck? I grew up reading her warm, funny essays about domestic life, never dreaming that one day I’d attend a workshop held in her honor on the campus of her alma mater, the University of Dayton. A recent article in Parade magazine by Dr. Nancy Berk features interviews with several of the workshop faculty I’ll be meeting this weekend, who explain just what it was about the legendary humorist that continues to resonate with readers and writers of all ages, and from all walks of life.

I’ll try to keep you updated about my experience at the conference on Twitter, using the hashtag #EBWW2014. You can look for me at https://www.twitter.com/midlife2wife.

Gotta run—I’ve still got packing to do!

 

 

 

 

My Turn as Station Agent on the “My Writing Process” Blog Tour

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in The Writing Life

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MorgueFile Image

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When we writers aren’t writing, you can often find us thinking (and reading, and … okay, writing) about the writing process. The craft of writing is one that, at least for me, inspires endless and usually pleasurable study. We are, after all, self-reflective creatures; it makes sense that we think about how and why we do what we do—as long as it’s not at the expense of actually working on whatever writing project has embraced us. So when Stephanie Friedman, program director of the Writer’s Studio program at the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Chicago, invited me to hitch my car onto the “My Writing Process” whistle-stop blog tour train, I couldn’t say no. Stephanie and I were English majors together at Oberlin, and I’ve long admired her thinking and her writing. Besides, the exercise gives me a chance to further develop my thoughts about the creative process, and how it intertwines with my own work. If you aren’t familiar with Stephanie’s blog, “The Winding Stitch,” it’s well worth a visit. I encourage you to stop over there when you have a chance.

In addition to asking me questions about my writing process, Stephanie asked me to select three writers to carry on this blog tour’s tradition. At the end of my post, I’ll introduce you to the astonishingly gifted young adult novelist—and my good friend— A.B. Westrick; the diversely talented novelist and book critic Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski; and the intrepid and sage blogger and writing coach Jane Gassner.

These are the aspects of writing Stephanie has asked me to explore:

1. What am I working on?

I tend to plead the Margaret Atwood Fifth Amendment on this question, believing, as Atwood does (and here I paraphrase), that to talk too much about one’s writing while in the midst of it is bad luck—like naming your gods. But I don’t think it gives too much away to tell you that since starting The Midlife Second Wife (after spending two decades at a career that had me writing all day, although not for my own purposes) I’ve rediscovered my love for story telling and for creative expression. Besides which, the older I get the more I’m aware that my time here is finite. I have stories to tell, and I feel an urgency to tell them before it’s too late. So in addition to writing this blog, I’ve begun working on a memoir. There. I’ve said it. No mirrors cracked, so I think I’m okay.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I love that Stephanie answered this question by bringing George Saunders into the conversation: “Originality in art means settling into who you actually are.”

Think about that for a moment: settling into who you actually are. Think about the demands of that statement. Here are just a few of them:

  • to acknowledge painful truths;
  • to reflect back what the mirror sees, faithfully;
  • to accept that you are who you are—as a person, as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, as a friend, as a writer, and to accept that you have unique limitations, gifts, and dreams;
  • to respect those gifts and dreams, and to strive, in the most honest way possible, to dig with your bare hands against the rough surface of those limitations until—scratched and raw and possibly bleeding—you discover something that looks like a vein of gold; and
  • to do this repeatedly every time you sit down to write.

So, applying Saunders’ dictum to the memoir genre, the answer is pretty straightforward: my work differs from the work of other memoirists because each life is unique. My work is exactly that: my work. There are as many different memoirs out there as there are coffee blends—the aroma and flavor of each is like no other. In the case of fiction, which I expect to be writing at some point, I have to turn again to Atwood. Asked how autobiographical her novels and stories were, she gave what I thought at the time was the most wonderfully cagey answer, and this, too, is a paraphrase: Everything a writer writes is autobiographical in the sense that it has gone through her own head.

So take that, biographical critics!

3. Why do I write what I do?

The short answer: because I can’t help it. I began my writing life as a poet. That’s how I trained at Oberlin. And while I will always love poetry, and still write it from time to time, it’s become clear to me that I need a bigger canvas for my stories. I should add that studying the craft of poetry has influenced my prose tremendously. (My professor, Stuart Friebert, used to quote Grace Paley to our poetry workshop: “A poem a day keeps the prose doctor away.”)

I’m not sure I do this consciously, but I seem to seek music in a certain combination of words … to find rhythm in a certain sentence. I can’t play an instrument to save my life, but I’ve always had an ear for the English language. It’s a good thing, too, because my math skills are horrible. What I’m learning now, as I write longform narrative, is that although I might have the nouns right, and the flow of a sentence, and the visual image, the proof will be in the pudding’s structure. How do I stitch paragraph to paragraph, section to section, chapter to chapter, to form an artful, pleasing whole?

As for subject matter, nearly all of the early poems I wrote at Oberlin dealt with loss in some way or other; I need to write the book I’m working on now because I clearly have not found resolution for the losses in my life. A host of questions prick at me,  sticking like burrs to a sweater. I have to pick them off, one by one, and try to answer them.

I mentioned Grace Paley. In August 2014, I’ll be taking Dani Shapiro’s “Transforming Chaos Into Art: A Workshop in Fiction and Memoir” at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Shapiro studied with Paley at Sarah Lawrence, so there’s a bit of nice, footnoted symmetry in my desire to study with her. In Shapiro’s own beautiful memoir, Slow Motion, she offers the best definition of why we write that I’ve come across in a long while:

I see that there might be some way I can take the raw material of my life and transform it into something that transcends my own experience. I can organize the noise in my head into something that has order and structure. I can make sense of what, until now, has been senseless.

There’s a lot of chaos from my childhood that I need to make sense of. In telling part of my story (and it is only a part) I’m also trying to reconstruct a life that’s not my own. As I work and research (I’m reading my father’s World War II letters to his parents), I’m finding that the story I’m striving to tell could be, possibly, more his than mine. I think that’s why some memoirists tend to write more than one memoir in a lifetime. As Shapiro has noted:

The memoirist looks through a single window in a house full of windows. After all, we can’t look out of all the windows at once, can we?  We choose a view. We pick a story to tell.

4. How does my writing process work?

Soon after waking in the morning, I’ll have a mug of hot lemon water and my first cup of coffee, thanks to my endlessly supportive husband. Sitting up in bed, still in a hazy sort of dream state, I’ll begin reading something inspirational to my writing. For example, I’ve just finished Shapiro’s exquisite Still Writing, in which she quotes from the late poet Jane Kenyon’s advice for writers. I think this is important, because a writer who isn’t reading is like a person who isn’t breathing:

Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. [emphasis added].

So I’ll read a bit of something for which I have a strong affinity. I think we all need literary mentors, and right now, Dani Shapiro is mine. It’s not long before what I’ve read will snag a loose thread of something in my memory, or inspire an idea that I feel compelled to pursue.

I’ll put the book aside, pull out my iPad, and begin following my idea, pulling at the thread, writing while it unravels into something that ends up, newly-fashioned, in my Evernote app. I keep at this as long as I can … as long as I feel I’ve pulled and stitched as much as I can … as long as my energy lasts. I then email the note to myself so it’s on my computer, waiting for me when I settle at my desk, with my third cup of coffee, to begin work.

This is how I’m working these days, and it seems to be a good method for me.

I don’t want to say much more than this right now…time to invoke the Atwood Fifth Amendment, because once started, I could truly go on and on. And that’s not good for the work.

It’s time for the train to pull out of the station, so I’ll announce, in my best conductor’s voice, the three writers you’ll want to look for at the next stop:

A.B. Westrick
A.B. Westrick is the author of Brotherhood (Viking/Penguin 2013), an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and winner of the National Council for the Social Studies Notable Trade Book Award. She has been a teacher, paralegal, literacy volunteer, administrator, and coach for teams from Odyssey of the Mind to the Reading Olympics. A graduate of Stanford University and Yale Divinity School, Westrick earned an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She and her family live near Richmond, Virginia.
http://abwestrick.com/

Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski
Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski has completed a novel, Still Life with Aftershocks, which was one of 50 semi-finalists (out of 5,000 entrants) in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. She writes book reviews for The Washington Independent Review of Books and belongs to James River Writers, Backspace, the Virginia Writers Club, and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She was a judge in the 2012 Maryland Writers’ Association “Great Beginnings” novel contest.

Ellen loves to tell stories that communicate the deepest human emotions while never drowning the reader in them. What interests her most is the tension between the uncertainty and pain of life and its everyday pleasures, triumphs, and absurdity. She enjoys exploring the intersection of the visual arts and literature, often drawing inspiration from Washington’s trove of museums, galleries, and gardens. She blogs about art, design, natural wonders, and dance.
http://ellenkwatnoski.com/blog/

Jane Gassner
The founder and editor of MidLifeBloggers, one of the first sites to focus on the midlife/boomer cohort, Jane Gassner has plied her craft as a writer in just about every situation that calls for putting words on paper or screen. She has earned her living as a magazine feature writer, a documentary producer, a scholarly writer, a business writer, a print editor, a radio reporter, and a non-fiction book writer. She has not earned a penny for it, but she is also experienced at film and television scriptwriting. (She lives in Los Angeles, and that’s what you do when you’re a writer in LA).

Jane has taught writing in both college classrooms and independent writing groups to writers of every level, from beginning to published. That experience, along with her graduate-level education in English literature and psychology, provide the basis for the client-oriented coaching and editing service she offers as part of the MidLifeBloggers Writers’ Workshop. She is currently at work on a book focusing on that service, entitled Writing As Process & The Process of Writing: The Psychodynamics of Writing for Writers.
http://midlifebloggers.com

Look for their thoughts on the writing process on Monday, March 31st.

Now go and write something.

A Short History of Connecting the Dots

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by in The Cultured Life, The Writing Life, Transitions

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“Only Connect.”
                 —E.M. Forster

One of my favorite childhood pastimes was playing connect-the-dots. I took great pleasure in guiding my pencil from one numbered dot to the next to find out what would reveal itself to me on the page.

Writing is like that. So is life.

And this is a true story.

About two years ago, I was in Manhattan for a conference. It was Sunday, the last day, my travel day home, but after 72 hours in the airless rooms of the New York Hilton, my friend Nancy and I decided we’d escape and treat ourselves to brunch at Sarabeth’s. Being outside felt wonderful, despite the sticky August humidity. As we walked along Avenue of the Americas to the restaurant on Central Park South, I felt the exhilaration I always feel whenever I’m in the city: the rush of traffic, the clusters of strangers moving with and against me on the broad sidewalks, the glint of granite and marble and glass in the summer sunlight. All of this combines to make me feel as though I’m part of something important and larger than myself. The experience also, strangely, makes me feel grounded and secure; at the same time, I’m aware that at any moment, something unusual might happen that could change my course.

That morning, something did.

Nancy and I reached the restaurant and positioned ourselves to join the short queue that had formed outside the door. Out of the corner of my eye, two people emerged, one of them familiar to me. “Linda Lavin,” I said softly to Nancy. And then, for emphasis, to register my out-of-towner’s surprise at seeing a Famous Person, and to make sure Nancy heard me, I repeated, a bit loudly: “It’s Linda Lavin!” Not only Nancy heard me; so did Ms. Lavin, who looked over at me, probably thinking, tourists!

Thus engaged, I said the only thing I could say to justify my rube-like behavior: “We love you!” Linda Lavin smiled. She was wearing a baseball cap, which looked adorable on her, and she continued on her way.

You might think the story ends there, but it doesn’t.

Nancy and I enjoyed a delicious brunch, walked back to our hotel, picked up our baggage from the concierge and parted amidst the foot traffic of a sweltering day—she to hail a taxi for the airport, me to catch a cab to Penn Station.

Settled in Amtrak’s Quiet Car, heading south to Virginia on the Northeast Regional Line, I picked up my iPhone and sent out a tweet that went something like this:

“Spotted Linda Lavin outside Sarabeth’s in NYC…don’t you just love her?”

A moment passed, possibly two, and then, to my surprise, someone with the handle “mmaren” retweeted my tweet.

“Why would somone retweet this?” I wondered. And “who is “mmaren?” I clicked on his Twitter profile, and then on the hyperlink to his website.

A journalist. A filmmaker—something about a film in production. Husband of writer Dani Shapiro. I filed all this away, and tweeted out my thanks to him for the retweet. (For those who might be reading this hundreds of years into the future, tweeting is how people met one another in the early 21st century, without really meeting each other.)

Back and forth we tweeted, during which Mr. Maren followed me. Here’s a brief exchange:

Marci Rich ‏@Midlife2Wife 5 Aug 2012
To @mmaren. Thanks for the lovely follow. Eager to learn more about your film.

Michael Maren ‏@mmaren 5 Aug 2012
@Midlife2Wife Well, it stars the lovely and insanely talented Linda Lavin… info here on FB http://on.fb.me/HI3pY7 

Marci Rich ‏@Midlife2Wife 5 Aug 2012
@mmaren thanks for the link. I’ll definitely take a look. My mom had Alzheimer’s. Part I of her story is on my blog. Will share w/u soon.

I have since followed the development of Maren’s film, A Short History of Decay, with great interest, and I’m eager to see it. Throughout the past year, select film festivals have screened it, and Paladin is releasing it in April 2014. If you’d like to know more about it, here’s an interview, from the Hamptons International Film Festival, with Maren and two of the film’s actors:

I wrote at the beginning of this essay that my Linda Lavin sighting on that humid Sunday morning in 2012 set me on a different course; it was, in fact, a course strewn with dots that I connected, one after the other: my tweet about seeing her led to Michael Maren’s retweet, and my awareness of his film about Alzheimer’s—a topic of great interest to me. Our resulting exchanges led me to seek out more information about the writings of his wife, Dani Shapiro, whom at the time I had not read.

Now, after reading two of her novels; one of her memoirs, Slow Motion; and having nearly finished her newest book, the astonishing Still Writing (which I’m recommending to every writer I know), I have made a discovery. In Shapiro’s work I have found a kindred spirit and a literary soul-mate—as I read her I feel as though I’m filling pages of connect-the-dot workbooks, each one studded with epiphanies.

Here’s one of them: I would like to study with her. I’m at work on a manuscript, and in need of a mentor and guide. I find myself at the end of that long cluster of dots that emerged in Manhattan nearly two years ago, to this spot: I am first on the wait-list for Shapiro’s workshop in fiction and memoir at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

I hope and pray I get in. Maybe, if I happen to see Linda Lavin somewhere in the Cleveland area, where I’m living now, I can take that as a good sign.

A Simple Dream about Walking and Singing, with Linda Ronstadt

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in The Writing Life

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MorgueFile image

MorgueFile image

One of the first things a creative writing instructor will advise is to keep a journal and pen on your nightstand, so that when you awake in the morning, you can record any interesting dreams—the imaginative fuel that can kindle a story or poem. I’m a lazy morning person—reluctant to emerge from slumber and slow to light the day’s fire, so I’ve done this on fewer occasions than I care to admit. It’s a shame, because I have amassed a prolific catalog of dreams (most dissipated into an irretrievable haze) that are nothing short of cinematic: almost always in color, with vivid actions and characters, and a discernible narrative arc. Last night I had such a dream, and was so in awe of its qualities that I picked up my iPad and recorded all I could remember in my Evernote APP.

A bit of prologue for those who haven’t followed my blog lately. On November 10 last year, I took a nasty fall and fractured my left foot. As I write this, it’s January 19 and I remain in a plaster cast, unable to walk. Since the accident, I’ve had several dreams in which I’m walking, but last night’s was so detailed and astonishing that I’m going to recount it here. This is nearly verbatim as I recorded it when I awoke this morning.

Last night, another dream where I was walking.

I was taking a class at Oberlin, and for one of our assignments we had to look at a catalog of album covers, pick one, and record the words on the cover, singing in the manner of the artist. I chose an album by Linda Ronstadt. I practiced at home, home being my mother’s house. She’s been dead for 14 years. I sounded really great. Next, I had to decide what I would wear for the recording. I looked through the closet in my old bedroom at my mother’s house, and pulled out a skirt that I actually own—a pretty, ankle-length, multicolored gypsy-looking skirt I purchased years ago from the Soft Surroundings catalog. I picked another skirt from the closet, one I didn’t recognize, and held both up so my mother could choose which one she thought would be best for the recording. She selected my favorite skirt, and this pleased me. I then rummaged around in the bottom of my closet to find shoes I could wear that would be safe and comfortable, but still look nice for the recording. I chose some flat, strappy sandals in black—again, a pair I actually own. Perfect. My hair looked great, too—I was wearing it kind of mid-length but layered, the way Linda Ronstadt once wore hers. I looked exactly the way I wanted to look.

Unfortunately, I had taken so long choosing my wardrobe and getting ready that I didn’t notice class was about to start in just a few minutes. In typical dream-logic fashion, I decided to walk the 15 miles to Oberlin. I looked down, and could see my feet moving, one foot in front of the other, in my pretty sandals, working just the way feet are supposed to work. I wisely kept off any uneven grass so I wouldn’t fall again, sticking to the streets and sidewalks.

I finally reached the King Building on campus, where my class was going to record the album covers, and where I actually did meet for most of my classes when I was a student. For some reason that defies even dream logic, I kept walking in a loop around the building—perhaps it was the thrill of walking that kept me going. Finally I decided it was time to enter the building and go to class.

Since I was so late, the halls were nearly empty. And, echoing a recurring dream of mine, I couldn’t figure out which was the correct staircase to get me to my room. After some trial and error, I ended up on the right floor, but a granite barricade blocked the glass doors leading to the hallway I needed to access. I saw a couple of students, and asked if they could help me move the barricade.

One of them questioned me. “Do you have a hall pass?”

“I don’t believe in hall passes,” I said, struggling—successfully—to move the barricade, then squeezing myself through the glass doors.

I made it to the room. The instructor wasn’t there, but recording equipment, unopened and still in its black cases, was on the floor in the front of the room. My classmates sat in a couple of rows towards the back.

I realized that I had left the house without my purse, or any of the things I normally carry with me. All I had in my hand was a pair of black gloves, which I decided would be a perfect addition to my costume.

I also realized that I didn’t give much thought to the top I’d wear with the skirt. I had slipped on a black sleeveless tank, something I’d normally hesitate wearing because I’m self-conscious about my arms. To my surprise, when I looked down, the top looked flattering; apparently hoisting myself up and down the stairs on my bottom, since I can’t walk, had left my arms looking toned. (But let’s not get carried away. They still weren’t Michelle Obama arms.)

You know how they say that at the point in a dream where you die you wake up? I opened my mouth, and that’s when the dream ended. But I woke up singing “Best of my Love,” an old Eagles song. As far as Google and I can tell, Linda Ronstadt never recorded a cover of this, although who’s to say she never sang it? Anyone familiar with her complete discography is invited to correct me if I’m wrong on this.

Here are the themes of my dream as I see them: Album covers and song covers. Singing. Walking. Dressing and appearance. Needing to meet an assignment on deadline. Being blocked, but successfully freeing myself on my own.

Here’s how I interpret the dream. I’m currently working on a full-length book project, which is why I haven’t blogged quite as regularly as I do. For the past week I’ve felt blocked. Writers will understand this: You get so far along in a manuscript, leave it for even a day too long, and find it difficult to clamber back into the world you’ve created. The way I see the dream, I’m hindered in my writing by my fascination with walking after not walking for nearly three months, and by my preoccupation with outward appearances, making me late for an important class. Nevertheless, I persevere and achieve my objective. In the dream, it’s to sing. In real life, it’s to write, which is, let’s face it, a kind of singing.

Why Linda Ronstandt? Well, she’s always been one of my favorite singers, and she’s from my era. Maybe it’s because we share the same coloring. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been reading about her recently released memoir, Simple Dreams, which I’ve added to my wishlist. Ronstadt has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, and she’ll eventually be facing mobility issues of her own. Perhaps most heartbreaking of all is the fact that she can no longer sing. Thank God we have her recordings, but how devastating it must be for her, losing such an enormous, beautiful gift! My inability to walk is temporary. Her inability to sing is permanent.

Before I stop playing the role of Jung in this little game of pop psychology, I want to explore one more thing. Why was “Best of my Love” the song I was supposed to sing in my dream?

I see two meanings here.

First, in order to write you have to give it your all, the best of yourself. Your best self, powered by your love of what you do.

Second, my husband has taken on nearly every household duty since my injury: marketing, errands, cooking, laundry, and seeing that I’m fed and cared for. I get the best of his love every day. (I always have, but these are trying times, and he still comes up loving me.)

For my part, I hope he gets the best of my love, although my physical challenges right now limit the small, domestic actions I perform that show him how much I love him. And then there’s this: Since I’ve been forced to be still for so many weeks, I’ve focused far more on my writing than I have in years. Is there a danger in giving writing the best of my love, when what I want is to give it to him?

I think my dream is telling me that one shouldn’t have to exclude the other. I can give the best of my love to my craft, and to my life partner. It’s all about finding the right balance.

Which, if you think about it, is what’s required in walking.

Good Day, Sunshine!

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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Sunshine-AwardAs a writer and blogger living in Northeast Ohio, where the skies are, shall we say, quite frequently sun-challenged, I was gobsmacked to receive a Sunshine Award from one of my favorite bloggers, Lois Alter Mark over at Midlife at the Oasis. Aside from being a terrific writer, Lois has won some impressive awards—she’s this year’s Blogger Idol, don’cha know?—contributes, like me, to the Huffington Post, and (unlike me) went to Australia with Oprah. She’s also one of the nicest, friendliest, funnest bloggers I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. We crossed paths in real life at BlogHer12, where we both won Voice of the Year awards, and took each other’s photo standing next to our names on the big sign.

I’m honored to accept the Sunshine Award from Lois, and not just because I think she’s all that and a bag of chips. I’m in some pretty august company here; several of the bloggers Lois selected are among my favorites, and I hope you’ll visit her page to discover some excellent new blogs to add to your reader.

A few responsibilities go along with accepting this award. (Thank God walking a red carpet isn’t one of them, since I’m still in a plaster cast.) First, I must reveal seven random facts about myself. I can’t imagine what you don’t already know about me after more than two years of blogging, but here, in no particular order, goes:

  1. I must start each morning with a mug of hot lemon water, otherwise I get cranky.
  2. I was the Lebanese-Syrian princess in the International Festival Princess Pageant in Lorain, Ohio, in 1974, the year I graduated from high school.
  3. I performed in plays in high school and, after graduating, in local community theater productions. I wore a blond Gibson Girl wig in a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, but made do with my own hair as Babe in Crimes of the Heart.
  4. I know how to twirl a baton.
  5. I’ve tap-danced on stage. I’ve also sung on stage.
  6. I tried to make roasted chestnuts one Christmas and vowed never to do so again. Have you ever tried to peel a chestnut?
  7. I’m happiest when I’m looking into my husband’s eyes.*

MarciRich_LebanesePrincess*Okay. You have to allow me one gushy item—this did start out as a relationship blog, after all.

But wait. There’s more. I have to answer these seven questions:

If you could go back in time ten years and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?

You have no idea how happy you’re going to be in ten years.

What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

Rocky Road, but only if it’s from Mitchell’s in Rocky River, Ohio.

If you were to take me on a date, where would we go and why?


I assume by “you” you mean my husband. (See what I did there?) We would travel to Ireland for him, and Sicily for me, because those are places that hold great meaning for us.

Above all else, what are you afraid of?

Loss.

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Speak, read, and write French fluently, play the cello, and spend at least five hours each day writing.

What has been your favorite age to be and why?

Every year since turning 50, because in spite of cancer and fractures and surgeries, that’s when I really came into my own…and when I found the love of my life.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

We’re almost done, dear reader. In fact, I think this is the best part. I get to choose 11 blogs that bring sunshine into my life (but I’m going to take a page out of Lois’s playbook and round it up to an even dozen). Suffice to say that many of the blogs on Lois’s list are among my faves, too, and I’m glad to discover some that I somehow missed before. I hope you’ll take my own list, then, in that spirit. Here, in alphabetical order, we go:

A Boomer’s Life After 50

Alexandra Wrote

Ann’s Rants

Dame Nation

Darryle Pollack: I Never Signed up for This

Dating Dementia

Empty House Full Mind

Grown and Flown

Lavender Luz

Midlife Mixtape

The Boomer Rants

Witty Woman Writing

I could go on and on, but since I can’t, please allow me to tell you that there are many other fine writers and bloggers whose work I admire, and you can catch them at three of my favorite sites: Midlife Boulevard, edited by Sharon Hodor Greenthal and Anne Jenkins Parris, the dynamic WHOA! Network, curated by Darryle Pollack and Lynn Forbes, and last but not least, Huff/Post50, edited by Shelley Emling. It’s been my honor to have appeared on their respective bandwidths, and I look forward to many more collaborations in the years to come.

Now go forth and spread some sunshine of your own. And Lois, thanks again!

In Memoriam: Seamus Heaney, and Other Writers we Lost in 2013

29 Sunday Dec 2013

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A prized possession: a first-edition copy of Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney's poetry, inscribed to me.

A  first-edition copy of the Nobel laureate’s poetry, inscribed to me: “To Marci—well met in Oberlin. Seamus Heaney”

I thought about writing the standard New Year’s Eve fare this year, illustrated with balloons and noisemakers, and festooned with streamers of resolutions. In a contemplative mood, I even toyed with the idea of riffing on the word “resolution” to see where the associations might take me. (You know: “I’m a writer. I resolve to write every day without fail.” That sort of thing.) But my contemplative mood took an unexpected turn. I pulled this copy of Seamus Heaney’s poems down from my shelf, and began thinking about the writers we lost this past year.

Seamus Heaney, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, died on August 30. I met him in the late 1980s; he had come to present a lecture and reading at Oberlin College, where I was a student majoring in English. (A “specialization” within the major allowed me to take creative writing workshops, where I could concentrate on my own poetry.) Members of the English and creative writing faculties were entertaining the “greatest Irish poet since Yeats” at a dinner preceding his lecture. To my astonishment and eternal gratitude, my poetry professor invited me to join them. I was the only student there.

What do I remember of that dinner? There were perhaps six of us, seated at a round table in a windowed corner of the Oberlin Inn. I remember drinking a glass of white wine with whatever it was that I ate. Seamus Heaney regaled us with wonderful stories. Another of my professors talked about reading Danté in the Italian with an esteemed emeritus.

You have to remember: I was an older student, probably 31 or 32. My parents never went to college. I hadn’t even read an English translation of Danté yet. But one thing was clear to me: I had come a long way from the darkened movie theater where I saw Educating Rita and resolved to return to school.

My professor had told Seamus Heaney something of my story: married student with a young son, commuting every day to classes from a neighboring town, writing poetry that they all thought showed promise. I know this because at the book signing following the lecture, the greatest Irish poet since Yeats told me. “I think what you’re doing is wonderful,” he said. And then he signed two books for me.

Rest in peace, Seamus Heaney. I hope you’re enjoying many fine meals in the sweet hereafter, and that Yeats and Danté are among your table companions.

In Memoriam

Chinua Achebe, Nigerian author

Iain Banks, Scottish writer

Dr. Joyce Brothers, psychologist and author

Carolyn Cassady, writer

Tom Clancy, best-selling military novelist

Janet Dailey, romance writer

Roger Ebert, film critic and journalist

Syd Field, author of books on screenwriting

Rev. Andrew Greeley, best-selling author and columnist

Marcella Hazan, cookbook author

Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, Nobel Laureate

Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize winning Cuban-American novelist

Peter Kaplan, editor, New York Observer

Elmore Leonard, best-selling crime novelist

Doris Lessing, novelist, essayist, poet, Nobel Laureate

Albert Murray, novelist and critic

Alvaro Mutis, Columbian writer and poet

Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egyptian poet

Barbara Park, children’s book author

Ida Pollock, romance novelist

Lou Reed, songwriter, singer, musician

Andre Schiffrin, editor

Mary Thom, feminist, writer, editor

Ned Vizzini, YA author

Bernard Waber, children’s author

Colin Wilson, British author

Invited Writer Shut Out from Anti-Bullying Event

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Current Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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If your 12- or 13-year-old child or grandchild were being bullied, would you want her to hear a YA author–one who had herself been bullied–speak about hope and survival? Even if she wrote a novel about bullying that had the word “ass” in the title?

Students in the seventh and eighth grade at Cumberland Middle School in Virginia missed out on the chance to hear award-winning author Meg Medina address them at a school-sponsored anti-bullying event–one to which she had been enthusiastically invited–because of the title of her highly praised new novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (Candlewick Press). The book features bullying as its central theme, and occasionally uses language that Medina–and a bullying expert–say kids use to torment their victims.

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Medina, of Richmond, was invited in March by the principal of Cumberland Middle School to speak in advance of National Bullying Prevention Month in October. Less than three weeks before the September 17 event, he sent her an email canceling her talk. The reason? Concern over how some members of the community might react to her book’s title. Ironically, September 22 is the start of Banned Book Week sponsored by the American Library Association.

The drumbeat of concern was actually rumbling for a few days. Prior to receiving the principal’s summary cancellation, a school official sent Medina a message, asking — at the principal’s request — that she refrain from mentioning the full title of her book, not use “offensive language,” and not show the book’s cover.

Here is an excerpt from Medina’s response to the school, which she posted on her website’s blog:

For me to come to your school and distance myself from my work feels disrespectful of me as an author, but worse, it feels dishonest in dealing with the students, most especially those who are on the receiving end of harassment that already makes them feel ashamed. If I refuse to even name my book or tell them that the title comes from hearing those awful words firsthand, I would only be adding to that shame. … I believe that one way we adults can help is to acknowledge the reality of what our kids are experiencing…

Medina did suggest a compromise. Perhaps the school could send a letter home to the parents about her upcoming appearance and her books? Parents who would find the material offensive could opt out.

No deal. The door slammed shut after the Labor Day weekend.

When asked if she had intended to read from Yaqui Delgado during her presentation at Cumberland, she says: “I don’t typically read from my books when I do school visits. If anything, I’ll read a page. I speak about writing, and the kinds of books I write — books with strong Latina characters. I tell the kids what my books are, and that I write for all age groups, and then I launch into the focus of the session.”

The title of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass comes from the novel’s opening line, a message delivered by Yaqui Delgado’s lackey to Piddy Sanchez, the book’s 15-year-old protagonist. Piddy is new at the school. She has no idea who Yaqui Delgado is or why she wants to hurt her. The book, praised in the Washington Post as “richly developed” and “unflinching,” includes a harrowing example of cyber-bullying.

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YA Author Meg Medina

The child of Cuban immigrants, Medina grew up in Queens, where for two years, starting in the seventh grade, she endured the trauma of bullying. She calls that time a “fight for my dignity.” It is “the shard of experience” that inspired Yaqui Delgado.

The Issue of Censorship
Acacia O’Connor coördinates the Kids’ Right to Read Project in New York City for the National Coalition Against Censorship and its joint sponsor, the American Booksellers’ Foundation. She says that the NCAC is seeing many instances of censorship of late, particularly with respect to uses of profanity. “We work on a new case about once a week,” she says. “Since August 1st of this year, ten new challenges or issues involving schools and libraries have come to our attention.” O’Connor recently wrote about Medina’s situation on the NCAC blog:

At the heart of [cancellations such as Medina’s] lies the belief that we can clean up the world by erasing the parts some people dislike.

O’Connor says that author Judy Blume, a NCAC board member, brought the Medina-Cumberland County Schools issue to her attention, calling Blume a “guardian angel” to YA authors who are going through these controversies.

“I think it’s regrettable that there has been so much lead-up and enthusiasm surrounding [Medina’s] talk,” says O’Connor, “especially with her expertise and familiarity with the topic of bullying. It’s unfortunate that students won’t be able to hear her wonderful message because of a misunderstanding over the use of a particular … word.”

A Bullying Expert Weighs In
Dr. Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and Bunker Professor of Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, is a national expert on bullying. He directs the Youth Violence Project at UVA and serves as a program director of Youth-Nex, the university’s Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. He first met Meg Medina when he was asked to comment on her book as part of a panel for the Virginia Festival of the Book.

“One of the biggest barriers to helping victims of bullying is their reluctance to seek help,” says Cornell–a reluctance born out of fear. “Adults are often blind to the presence of bullying, and our bullying prevention programs often fail to reach students who are in trouble. Medina’s book is a terrific illustration of these problems and has the potential to reach young people who need assistance and otherwise would not receive it.”

Cornell understands that the wording of Medina’s title might be troubling to some parents and teachers, but he hopes that they won’t judge the book by its cover–that they will take the time to read it. “I think [the title] reflects the reality of how many young people speak to one another.” He calls Medina’s book “a good source of insight” for parents and teachers who might not appreciate the way that bullying pervades youth culture, or how limited prevention programs can be.

Praise from Reviewers
In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called Yaqui Delgado “a nuanced, heart-wrenching and ultimately empowering story about bullying.”

School Library Journal even had a word to say about the book’s cover in its starred review:

Lots of action with a realistic setting, dialogue, relationships, problems, and solutions make this book a winner. The cover–a blue locker with graffiti for the title–will attract reluctant readers. The content will keep them reading to the end and wanting more.

Judging a Book by its Cover
The book’s cover, however, was what Cumberland County school officials were judging. That, and a promotional trailer.

Requests for an interview with Dr. Amy Griffin, Cumberland County Superintendent of Schools, went unanswered. Her only on-the-record comments appear in Richmond Magazine’s blog and a statement that she sent to Richmond television station WRIC, in which Griffin notes concern about the title of Medina’s book and “inappropriate language” used in the promotional trailer.

In the Richmond Magazine blog, Griffin is quoted as saying: “[Medina’s book] really more to me seemed to address high school and inner city.”

One final, tragic note: On September 13, four days before Medina would have given her presentation at Cumberland Middle School, the New York Times reported on yet another bullying-related suicide. Students had relentlessly taunted and cyber-bullied Rebecca Sedwick, urging her to kill herself. She did as they suggested, jumping to her death from a platform at a cement factory. Rebecca was 12 years old. She lived in Lakeland, Florida. She was in middle school, as were her tormentors.