Manaus Journal (2) – Tie your House to a Tree
In between attending two World Cup games in Manaus, the capital city of the Amazon, we had time to explore the river and the rain forest. When we were visiting in June, the rainy season had just ended, and thus water levels were at their annual high. Manaus waterfront with typical Amazon passenger boats Manaus cannot be reached by [...]
Mining your Dreams for Writing (1)
I am happy to welcome my writing friend Shirley Letcher as my guest blogger today. Shirley has been a teacher of music, theater and arts for over forty years, from preschool to community college. She has traveled extensively throughout her career, teaching and performing in New York, New Jersey, Alaska, and Maryland. She is a frequent presenter at state, national, and [...]
Tel Aviv Journal: Life with Air Raids
My super short video of air raid sirens in Tel Aviv on July 12, 2014 I've been home in Chicago now for a while but I kept a journal of daily life in Tel Aviv once the air raids started, and I want to share that here, mainly for myself so that I don't forget. The main after-effect for [...]
Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway Foundation
My big news since returning from Tel Aviv: I will be the 2014-15 writer-in-residence at the Hemingway Foundation! This entails having a studio up under the roof of Hemingway's birthplace home in Oak Park, Illinois. What could be cooler than writing from Hemingway's attic? It's just a tad intimidating, actually... My responsibilities also include offering community programming, and my head is [...]
Sirens over Tel Aviv
This is the Tel Aviv building where we are currently staying on the top floor - the penthouse is set back so you can't see it from the street, plus it's rather small. As an architecture aficionado, I thought it would be cool to live in a Bauhaus building, but that also means as an older building it has no bomb shelter. When sirens sound, [...]
Manaus Journal (1) – Terrific Games, Horrific Travel
A snippet of what it was like to be in the stadium during a World Cup game I had the good fortune to travel with two of my children to attend two Group Stage World Cup games in Manaus, Brazil. We were joined by friends there who were coming from other parts of the U.S. Overall, it was a great [...]