For a few weeks in 2020, I thought I was going to die. And then as time passed, I realized that while others around me were dying—at one point my small city had one of the highest death rates in…
Blog Archives
Reading Slow and Fast During the Pandemic
Tagged with: Alex S. Vitale, Ann Patchet, book clubs, Edith Wharton, Ibram X. Kendi, Isabel Wilkerson, James Baldwin, Leo Tolstoy, Lily King, Nella Larsen, reading, War and Peace
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
A poetry collection that forces a reinterpretation
I enjoy reviewing books for Literary Ladies Guide (and other sites). In the process of reviewing, I get to think through why a book is important or moves me. The Age of Phillis was a book that changed my views…
Tagged with: colonial Massachusetts, George Washington, Honoree Fannone Jeffers, Phillis Wheatley, poetry, slavery, women of color, women's work, writing and women, writing poetry
Posted in About Me
Posted in About Me
Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade
Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade (2020) sheds new light on fascinating female literary figures. Source: Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade
Posted in About Me
The 1930s: ‘Women had the vote, but the old agitation went on’ | Women’s suffrage | The Guardian
Women won voting rights equal to men in Britain in 1928, but that didn’t mean they had attained equality. Per Diana Souhami’s article in The Guardian: “To have legislation is not at all the same as to have the state…
Tagged with: 1930s Britain, British Union of Fascists, Diana Souhami, fascism, misogyny, Oswald Mosley, suffrage, the 1930s, The Guardian, women, women's suffrage, women's work
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
How to Get the Muse to Visit – The Millions
The best advice is the kind that makes you (me!) laugh. Don’t go on the Internet, even if it’s to jog your memory or to fact-check something you or the Muse has said. You can fact-check later with…
Tagged with: craft, creative writing, hannah gersen, literary creation, Muse, The Millions, writing, writing advice
Posted in About Me
Posted in About Me
On the Undeniable Lure of the Historic Literary Home ‹ Literary Hub
“Houses, much like people, have a public and a private identity…” Elizabeth Brooks on the way old houses stimulate the novelist’s imagination. I note that all the examples of writers inspired by old houses Brooks offers–Agatha Christie, Charlotte Brontë, Daphne…
Tagged with: agatha christie, Charlotte Bronte, creative writing, Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Brooks, estates, literary creation, novel, old houses, stately homes, women, writing
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
Sixty Years of Tracking Publications… and Rejections ‹ Literary Hub
Thoughts on rejection from my thesis advisor. I’m glad he is still writing–and keeping score. Jay’s persistence is an inspiration, and I think of the mantra of meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg each morning as I sit down to write–Begin Again.…
Tagged with: books, Covid-19, E. M. Forster, Franz Kafka, Harvey Swados, Jay Neugeboren, John Kennedy O'Toole, Lit Hub, mortality, Nadine Gordimer, publishing, rejections, Willa Cather
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
A Good Journalist Understands That Fascism Can Happen Anywhere, Anytime ‹ Literary Hub
In researching the rise of fascism in 1930s Britain, I was surprised to learn that Oswald Mosley, the charismatic founder of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), was initially a fan of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. He formed the BUF…
Tagged with: anti-fascist, anti-Semitism, Dorothy Thompson, fascism, Lit Hub, Mussolini, Nancy Cott, Oswald Mosley, women, women's work
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
Tillie Olsen, Author of Tell Me a Riddle | LiteraryLadiesGuide
Since I posted yesterday about Virginia Woolf and how A Room of One’s Own made me think of Tillie Olsen’s Silences, I wanted to post Olsen’s biography from the Literary Ladies site today. I remember being moved by Olsen’s Tell…
Tagged with: creative writing, literary creation, literary history, Literary Ladies, tillie olsen, Virginia Woolf, women, women's work, writing
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
A Room of One’s Own and Time to Think
This posting from Literary Ladies is about Virginia Woolf, but I find myself thinking about Tillie Olsen. I think they were from the same era–perhaps Olsen was a little younger. But of very different economic classes. I don’t think that…
Tagged with: 1930s, fiction, literary creation, literary history, Literary Ladies, tillie olsen, Virginia Woolf, women, women's work, writing, writing advice
Posted in What I'm Reading
Posted in What I'm Reading
