I don’t often read books about Being a Writer. Because you know I’m above all that, ha ha ha. At least I used to think I was. But Bird by Bird is famous among writers, a book that everyone at writer’s group has heard of. Of course I didn’t rush out to read it. Because […]
Review: BIRD BY BIRD. And thank You, Anne Lamott. Read More »
I have to admit that though I loved this book, which concerns the sudden death of Didion’s husband, John Dunne, after nearly 40 years of marriage, I did not completely believe it. That is perhaps my central critique of Didion’s masterwork and of the Didion magical thinking theme. Her claims about her marriage, her claims
Book Review: Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking Read More »
Although writing contests have long charged entry fees, and this is considered justified because it’s a contest and there are significant prizes to be won, submitting your work to various journals used to be uniformly free. Now in the last ten years, more and more literary magazines are charging writers to submit to their regular
90 Lit Magazines With No Submission Fee Read More »
The Sound of Gravel, Flatiron Books, 2015. It’s dark outside and in the beginning of The Sound of Gravel. The polygamous cult in which Wariner is raised, 200 miles south of Juarez, Mexico, is a land of rural beauty and grinding poverty. Living off the land is not exactly working for the 30-odd families of
Book Review: Memoir: Ruth Wariner gives us a family portrait of polygamy Read More »
I almost didn’t go to see the new Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. The DJ said on the radio at the time. “As for a Bohemian Rhapsody review … well, the reviews are mixed.” After watching it, and being thoroughly moved, especially by the second half of the movie, I went back. I re-read the iffy
I finished Educated by Tara Westover and I enjoyed every minute of it, though the story’s villains — Westover’s parents and her brother Shawn — were unpleasant in the extreme, and slippery to the end. The story, which at the outset appears to treat mainly of the academic success of a child of radical unschooler
Book Review: Educated by Tara Westover Read More »
I am in mourning because yesterday I finished Hell Bent, a book I was totally taken up with, totally lost in the author’s tale. And now it’s over, I can never visit that world for the first time again. Benjamin Lorr was at one time, if you like, a Bikram Kool-Aid drinker, who went to
Finishing Benjamin Lorr’s Hell-Bent, a Yoga Memoir Read More »
I have been reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed and have found in her a fellow-traveler in more ways than one. Not just someone who felt she had to go somewhere for spiritual exercise — in her case, a 1000-mile trek by herself on foot alone along the spine of the Sierras — but someone who
Going it Alone: Wild by Cheryl Strayed Read More »
