The Artist & Writer’s Workbook 2018
The Artist & Writer's Workbook 2018 is here! Available as a free download if you sign up for my newsletter! (All my subscribers have already received it.) This year's title image features the train tracks that run by Walden Pond, close to where Henry Thoreau's cabin used to stand. I took it when I hiked around there with my daughter [...]
12/12/17 – Marking an Ordinary Day
Today I'm picking up the practice of creating a time capsule of one ordinary day, namely December 12, begun back on 12/12/12 when that was simply one cool date. I discovered I lapsed on this the last two years but I wanted to do it again this year as it's just fun to capture one particular date every year and [...]
Dead People’s Stuff
With my brother-in-law's recent death, the topic of dealing with all the things the deceased leave behind has become center stage again for my husband and me. Incidentally, just prior to that, I wrote an essay for Sasson Magazine about my love for some of the things I inherited from loved ones. This essay was the result of a discussion [...]
Book Companion Post: Writing About Family
My last visit with my brother-in-law Louis this summer As a memoir writer and particularly as the author of a family memoir, I am often asked how my family reacted to being written about (see one example here). As a teacher of memoir writing, I have a definite take on this, and I summed that up in Writing About [...]
The Joy of Learning to Read (Knitting Patterns)
My daughter wearing one of the hats I knitted for her after I learned to read American knitting patterns. I just began a new knitting project the other day--a hat for my brother--and it occurred to me that only a few years ago, I had not been able to interpret American knitting patterns. I learned to knit and crochet in [...]
Book Companion Post: Remembering Kristallnacht in Liberec
Today marks the 79th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, when most of the synagogues in the German Reich were destroyed along with Jewish shops and businesses. Until I researched my Jewish family history while writing Jumping Over Shadows, I didn't know that the destruction of the synagogue in my grandparents' hometown of Reichenberg (now Liberec) was directly [...]