Photo Essay: Stone Fences in Kentucky
I'm thrilled that this photo of mine appeared on Shutter Sisters as part of their "weekending" series, so I figured I'd better share it with you all as well. As I was going through my photos from my recent trip to Kentucky I realized the stone fences I was so enamored with deserve their own little photo essay, so [...]
Photo Essay: Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky
Bonnet on a peg board at Shaker Village - if only life could be this tidy. Last weekend I stole away from the Kentucky Women Writers Conference and spent a day visiting Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, 23 miles from Lexington, Kentucky. It was a truly glorious fall day spent in the picturesque heart of Bluegrass country, and I [...]
A Plant as a Companion
Our asparagus fern Prickly rules the sunporch. The other day I was reading E.B. White's One Man's Meat again. In the particular essay I happened upon, he was talking about a rubber plant: "This rubber plant is one I bought thirteen years ago on West Eighth Street and it has been my companion ever since. As rubber plants go, [...]
Why Chapter Headings Are Useful
My Advanced Memoir Workshop was fortunate to host Wenguang Huang, author of The Little Red Guard, for an immensely informative Q&A session back in July. (Lucky for us, he lives in Chicago.) His memoir tells the touching story of a worker’s family during China’s Cultural Revolution. Beneath a cloth in the bedroom, this family hides a dangerous secret: In a [...]
Photo Essay: Alcatraz
Pulling out of the dock, Alcatraz comes into view. We had the perfect slightly gloomy day when we visited Alcatraz on our family vacation to California in August. Touring Alcatraz is obviously a rather touristy thing to do. (It is San Fransisco's No. 1 tourist attraction.) However, it was also the No. 1 thing our younger son wanted to [...]
A 9/11 Tribute
I wrote about my 9/11 ritual last year, but I will write about it again this year, and probably in years to come as well, because that is what a ritual is: Something you do over and over again, on a certain day, for a certain occasion. Last night I took Portraits 9/11/01 off the bookshelf and put it on the [...]