As my biography of Doris Duke continues to simmer in the editing vats at Farrar, Straus, I must for my salvation begin to write—again.
Upcoming Workshop: “When Words Really Matter”
For words really to matter, they must illuminate a larger reality than the inevitably small perimeters of our daily lives.
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.
The Passion That Drives The Green Shoot Through The Flower: The Reason Many Women Take Writing Workshops
A while back, or perhaps it was more than a few years ago, we all became aware of the epidemic of violence against women in this country, and memoirs began to be written as the survivors felt empowered to describe what they had gone though, battling through shame and the fear of family repercussions. We all have our lists of these titles, some of them bitingly effective, others less so, and perhaps I was not alone in imagining that writing about the problem would make the problem go away, or at least diminish it.