Blog & Reflections
I love writing fiction, but it’s a long ride from beginning to end, whether on the marathon of a novel or the sprint of a story. It’s a welcome change of pace to write a blog post or an essay exploring what’s on my mind. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, I review as a way of giving back to the reading and writing community. It requires honesty, fairness, and being responsible to both the author and the book’s potential audience. Reviews have reach; mine of Marilynne Robinson’s Lila first appeared in The Fiction Writers Review and is also anthologized in Contemporary Fiction by Women, Chelsea House Publishers.
The Glowing in the Gloaming
During summer evenings on our farmhouse porch, we delight in watching the sun set. I call it the light and cloud show, though it’s not a performance. Sunset just is, no two evenings alike. Extravagant bands of gold and rose and violet soften and deepen into purple; drifts of smoky grey fade to charcoal and then black. Read More...
A Summer-Movie Roundup
Now and again, when not reading, scribbling, or swimming, Girl Writing goes to the movies and, from time to time, does a roundup of what’s playing. So, here’s my midsummer recap of three favorites: an autobiographical indie from Canada, a documentary from Iceland, and a mega blockbuster about a war veteran trying to get home. Read more...
Party Like It’s 1905
Past and present converged at a recent book event. Golden afternoon light, voluptuous white clouds. The ominous weather-app storm warnings seemed to be wrong. At the bottom of the ridge, we turned onto the state road west to Somerset. We passed farms in the valley, climbed the mountain, passed the state prison wrapped in chain-link and barbed wire. Almost there, we followed a local lane Read more...
The Reading Teacher
How a lifelong friend helped instill a lifelong love. Jewell Stoddard had a green thumb. A gardener extraordinaire, she and husband Ted created a woodland glade behind their home in suburban Maryland. Jewell and Ted, along with sons Philip and Andrew, became our lifelong family friends when Phil and my brother Don were in nursery school together. My mother taught first grade at the school; Read more...
I’ve Looked at Books From Both Sides Now
Reflections on reading and reviewing. Stephen Sondheim’s musical tragedy “Passion” includes a fierce aria to reading. Imprisoned by illness, Fosca sings: “I read to dream/I read to live/In other people’s lives…I read to live/to get away from life!” Fosca suffers, but she can read. Sadly, learning to read remains a privilege. Books can be burned. Books can be banned (as I write, there is a book-banning Read more...
Biden’s Bookmobiles: Why a presidential-library-on-wheels would be perfect
Although a constant personal correspondent by email and snail, I rarely write letters to the editor. I do read several papers every day, both hard copy and online. But now, I often only scan and skim, flinching at the news. A recent low-voltage headline in the New York Times caught my eye: “Biden Has Raised Little of What He Needs to Build a Presidential Library.” Read more...
