Note from Savannah: Visiting America’s Third Oldest Synagogue
My shot of the outside of the synagogue. I love the mix of palm trees and live oak! Today a short note from my travels: I spent the early afternoon in Savannah, Georgia, mainly to have lunch with a former client from my corporate consulting days. I also visited the third oldest Jewish congregation in the U.S., [...]
Reading: In Love with: 84, Charing Cross Road
“i never can get interested in things that didn’t happen to people who never lived.” Helene Hanff, in her letter of January 9, 1952 in 84, Charing Cross Road I am tempted to put this quote as the mantra of this blog here. Maybe under the headline? Isn't it perfect for the nonfiction writer? What do you readers think [...]
Writing Exercise: Color List – Shades of Green
One of the challenges in writing evocative descriptions is getting the color just right. Making your reader see what you see will draw him or her into the scene, and will help you create a three-dimensional world out of words. That means having a good color repertoire, and one that lets you pull an adjective or noun from your [...]
My 3 Favorite Books on Writing Memoir
In all my years of studying memoir, I have read many how-to-write-memoir books but I only go back to these three. I'm also not a big believer in books on writing. You can get your head scrambled that way and get lost in a lot of theory and terminology. The best way to learn how to write is to [...]
Poem A Day
Reading poetry is a wonderful way to infuse your mind with the beauty of words. For me April as National Poetry Month is a good reason to get back into my old habit of reading a poem every night before going to sleep. The anthology Poem A Day, volume 2, is my favorite book to read poetry every day. [...]
Michael Steinberg on Re-Imagining or: How I Came to Like a Book about Baseball
My Advanced Memoir Workshop students and I were fortunate enough to host Michael Steinberg, founding editor of the esteemed nonfiction journal Fourth Genre, and author, most recently, of Still Pitching, for an author Q&A this month. In preparation for our session, we read his memoir Still Pitching. On the face of it, is a book about growing up in [...]