Wandering the lobby of the Mammoth Hotel in Yellowstone National Park last week, I came on a little fountain buried in an obscure corner.
And Again, Adrienne
How reassuring it is to find a second appraisal, to my mind more sensitive and compelling than the first, in The New York Times (March 31).
Adrienne Rich Is Dead
In my heart, she has a special place because of some curious connections: she was at Radcliffe a few years before me, in the wretched fifties, and came out of that experience with formal training, an early marriage, and three sons.
What They Really Want Isn’t Fame or Fortune But Permission to Articulate Their Feelings
This essay, by Steve Almond, from the March 25th edition of The New York Times, comes like a bombshell, dispelling not only my notions about why people take the writing workshops I teach, but why I often find teaching them frustrating.
Barney Rosset
BARNEY ROSSET died a few days ago and the New York Times ran a long obituary on February 23, celebrating his role in freeing the U.S. reading public from censorship.
After the Kentucky Women Writers Conference
Twenty-five years ago, a group of women from all over the state started to put together what would be, for the area, the first gathering of women writers. I remember the first meeting I attended, in a tall office building set in the middle of the green University of Kentucky campus. Women writers came together who would become well known: Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bamberra, and many others. We were all at the beginning of something big—we knew it, rejoiced in it, and wondered how time would define, or change, our original dream.
Jill Abramson Appointed Executive Director of The New York Times
Having lived through the bad old days of journalism… I was elated to hear that Jill Abramson has been appointed the first women executive director of The New York Times.