yourpassions.tk

Everyone knows how memory dims and darkens with time. Yesterday I began writing about a memory from the summer after first grade when I felt “outside the circle.” I'd written  about this incident before, but decided to begin fresh. After five paragraphs I could see no further benefit in continuing the rewrite and tracked down a version from five years ago, intending to graft in some of that material. When I read the earlier story, my jaw dropped. The theme was the same, the other main character was the same, but circumstances were quite different. Yesterday's  story begins as I approach a cluster of kids that included Carol (the girl across the street) and half a dozen neighborhood boys. In the earlier version, Carol was jumping rope alone in front of her house. Which is real? Has my memory changed that much in five years? Which version should I use? As I closely examine the versions, slight differences begin to emerge. In the jump rope version, Carol does invite me to pl...

At the risk of sounding judgmental (how human would that be?) I’ve got to admit that when I continually hear nothing but rosy accounts from the same person, I grow suspicious, even angry at times. For example, an elderly woman I knew many years ago never had anything but the kindest, nicest things to say about people, even about people I found monstrously arrogant or rude. She was always smiling and cheerful, even in her nineties when I knew she had aches, pains, and countless physical problems and not everyone treated her well. By her account, people were always delightful, and her cheerfulness never ended. Get real, Gertie , I thought. Admit it. Some of the cherries in that bowl are rotten. Another example is an acquaintance who seemed authentically forthright and open. Until serious illness set in. At first, rosy Caring Bridge accounts of awesome friends and caregivers, minimal side effects, and even the blessing of illness seemed brave and spunky. Later, when no post ever m...

I just read Pittsburgh author Dave Newman’s story, “ Asteroids Falling Up ,” in The New Yinzer , a fine online literary magazine  published here in Pittsburgh. My eyeballs occasionally bulged as I read this risqué coming of age piece. This story punched windows into walls of reticence as I read. Perhaps , I thought, I can write more boldly – on other topics. Whether fiction or memoir, Newman’s compelling story would not ring true or have such impact had he toned down or skirted his topic. I mention this story, this experience, to illustrate the value of reading across the gender divide. As a writer I benefit from exposure to a wide variety of ideas, perspectives and writing styles. I could never get this credibly bold glimpse into a developing male psyche from anything written by a woman. Which brings me to writing groups and classes. I’ve been teaching memoir and creative writing classes for over fifteen years, all but a couple with mixed groups. Like Marion Roach Smith , I ...

What greater praise can an author give a book than to say “This is the book I wish I’d written!”? That’s the praise I heap onto Marion Roach Smith’s book, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-standardized Text for Writing & Life . How can I count the ways I admire this book? I’ll list a few: 1) She had me laughing the whole way through. Her rainbow of material covers the tragi-comic spectrum, but even the tragic has an amusing twist. I adore her off-the-wall humor and perspective. She nudges me to look at life from even more corners. 2) She walks her talk. She constantly illustrates her key point of writing with intention (that being focus at the closest range) by using short annotated clips of her own material. Many of these are items that have never fit anywhere else and finally found a home in this volume. Quite amazingly, she sticks to the point so tightly that she covers her material a mere 112 power-packed pages. She also holds to a a primary tenet of memoir by closel...