How to use this Page

I felt blessed when Pennsylvania Gazette editor John Prendergast invited me to write a 3,000 word story about Greg Djanikian, who trusted me to teach at Penn, who talks with  me many spring-semester Tuesdays when I arrive early to teach, who inspired a key character in my forthcoming Florence novel One Thing Stolen, and who writes some of the most gorgeous poetry anywhere. I wrote of his most recent book, Dear Gravity, here.

To write this story I spent an afternoon in Greg's beautiful home (filled with the artistry of his wife), interviewed Stephen Dunn, Julia Alvarez, Al Filreis, and others, and returned to a dear student, Eric Xu, who brought valuable insights to the Greg's beloved teaching.

The story can be found here.

Add a Comment

I am grateful to the famous professor and Kelly Writers House leader Al Filreis for sharing this clip with me yesterday.  It brings back a beautiful day, late last October, when I first read from Handling the Truth and joined Cynthia Kaplan, James Martin, and John Prendergast in a conversation about the making of memoir.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Tomorrow I'll be at my alma mater and spring employer, the University of Pennsylvania, joining in on the alumni memoir panel being hosted by Kelly Writers House for homecoming weekend.  I'll be reading from Handling the Truth (Gotham) and talking about the prickly enterprise of truth telling.  I'll be answering questions.  But what is making this already wonderful opportunity even sweeter is that I'll be seeing some of my past students.

This morning, for example, I woke to a glorious long email from Katie, who brought such golden light to the classroom this past spring and who emerged, during those Tuesday afternoons, as a real writer.  If you're lucky someday, you'll meet this Katie of mine (of ours), whose email included the news that she has been accepted into top-choice medical programs.  Katie is spending her gap year at a health ministry in a city that needs hearts and minds like hers.  In the off hours (though it sounds as if there are no off hours), she is enrolled in photography classes at an art school.  Katie has stories to tell, things to share, and this weekend she's returning to Penn, and if I'm lucky, I'll get to stand in her shimmering light for a while.

Nabil Mehta will be there, too, that engineering student and child actor whose highly poetic work enthralled us and whose essay appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette not long ago.  And perhaps Liz, supremely wonderful Liz, on her way from the west coast to the east.  And among those who may join us that afternoon is my just-named spring semester apprentice, Alice, who will be working with me as my Florence novel unfolds—conducting research, interviewing doctors, discovering how fact becomes story.

We adjunct teachers out here teach because of the doors that open when we do.  We teach because our students keep us young, and keep us whole.  This morning, when telling my husband of Katie's news, tears fell.  When I read Nabil's essay in the Gazette, or Joe Polin's Gazette essay before that, when I saw Rachel dance in Red Dot Dreaming, when my Kim celebrated her engagement, when my Moira got married, when Jonathan challenges me (with a smile), when the letters from galentines and searchers and doers enter in, joy breaks through.

That's the power of our students over us.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Late yesterday afternoon, I took a quick dance lesson then hurried to the train to see my kid, city side.  I have been down there untold times of late—checking out apartments, moving boxes in, arriving, breathless, to help with something, and of course, this young man (not a kid) needs no help at all.  I'm just drumming up excuses to spend an hour here or there with him.

So that I have seen the city under sun and the city swollen with rain, the city just after dawn, the city late at night.  And I have felt more energized and alive than I have felt for a long time.  Philadelphia does that to me.  And so do snatches of conversation with my guy.

This morning a text comes in, six a.m.ish.  I'm working on my story, it said.  Because my son shares this with me, this love of words.  This pleasure taken in filling the silent hours with vivid fictions.  By now, he's off to work, first day.  And my happiness for him is giant.

Meanwhile, Ryan Richards of Main Line Media News interviewed me yesterday morning at 8:15 a.m. (not-ish) and, 13 hours later, this Springsteen-infused story (which is also about the making of Small Damages for Philomel) had been posted.  Tuesday is day-before-pub day there at Main Line Media News and Ryan plays a central role in getting all stories out and prettied up for show.  I have no idea, therefore, how he wrote such a nice story in the midst of all that, but I thank him.  I hope he got some sleep last night.

Finally, tucked into the day was this formal announcement from Penn about the Homecoming Weekend Panel I'll be sharing with my friends Buzz Bissinger, John Prendergast, and Cynthia Kaplan, as well as James Martin, whom I am eager to meet.  Join us if you can.

October 27, 2012/Saturday 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM  

  
Memoir: Methods and Meanings
 Kelly Writers House
Arts Cafe
 3805 Locust Walk
 
Join alumni authors at Kelly Writers House as they read from and talk about their work in memoir.  Panelists include Pulitzer Prize-winner Buzz Bissinger C'76, whose latest book is Father's Day: A Journey Into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son; essayist and performer Cynthia Kaplan C'85, whose 'true stories' are collected in Why I'm Like This and Leave the Building Quickly; Beth Kephart C'82, author of multiple memoirs and young-adult novels, and of the forthcoming Handling the Truth; and James Martin W'82, author of In Good Company, which tells the story of his conversion from GE executive to Jesuit priest, and eight other books. Pennsylvania Gazette Editor John Prendergast C'80 will moderate the discussion. Advance registration is not required, but seating is limited. RSVP to [email protected] or call (215) 746-POEM.  

Display Comments Add a Comment

I do go on about those University of Pennsylvania students I have the privilege to teach, but why shouldn't I?  They are brave and beautiful and bold and lovable, and they have talent coming out of their ears.


I'm not typically able to show you that talent, but today I can.  That's because Mr. Joe Polin, an engineer (mind you!) who was enrolled in my class last semester, has just published this beautiful piece, his last work in our class, in the magnificent Pennsylvania Gazette.  It's called "Off the Rails."  It's about Joe's Cuban grandfather.  It starts like this, below, and to read the whole, simply click on this link here:

Santiago de Cuba, 1933:

The doctor examined the newborn twins, his forehead wrinkled with concern. He bent over the nearer one to listen to his breathing.

“Are they okay? Are they healthy?” the father asked.

The doctor finally straightened up, meeting the father’s gaze. After a moment of consideration, he said, “Give this one your name, he is perfectly healthy. This one”—he pointed to the smaller of the two twins—“isn’t going to make it. He’s too weak to survive.” 

I miss those students as fall gets underway, but in the spring I will be back.  If I see Joe Polin while he's rambling down Locust Walk some Tuesday, I'm going to give him a hug, whether he likes it or not.  For that matter, if I see any of those students .....

Thank you, editor John Prendergast.

Display Comments Add a Comment

The University of Pennsylvania has been extraordinarily good to me—inviting me to contribute to the pages of The Pennsylvania Gazette and Peregrine; trusting me to teach a small class of brilliant undergrads; putting me at the helm of an online book group; asking me to read with Alice Elliott Dark, or to sit on panels with Buzz Bissinger, or to join David Remnick for a Kelly Writers House dinner; and to come to know, even better, the likes of fellow teachers Jay Kirk and Karen Rile. 

Earlier this summer, John Prendergast, the editor of The Pennsylvania Gazette, wrote to say that he'd read Dangerous Neighbors and that he looked forward to having a conversation.  We had that conversation on a sunny day sitting on a row of skinny benches while a tennis match played out before us.  I was my breathless, enthused, and sleep-starved self (as you'll read) and John was the thoughtful man he is.  Several weeks later, the photographer Chris Crisman and his team met me at Memorial Hall and put up with me long enough to take my picture.

It is an extraordinarily generous story, accompanied by one of my favorite scenes from the book.  It will always be cherished.  And Chris, thanks for pulling your camera lens back.  You know what that means to me.

Display Comments Add a Comment

While waiting yesterday for a client call, I took The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol from its corner on my glass desk and read the final story, "The Overcoat." If it feels like "Bartleby the Scrivener" at first (with its particulate descriptions of the seemingly mundane), "The Overcoat" soon evolves into a smash-up of the horrifying and fantastic, as poor Akaky Akakievich, "a short, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat red-haired, even with a somewhat nearsighted look, slightly bald in front, with wrinkles on both cheeks and a complexion that is known as hemorrhoidal" clerk who never wants for a thing, suddenly (and with good reason) wants for a new coat, which, after six months of near-joyous privation, he can afford to buy. Which, but of course, Akaky will soon lose.

"The Overcoat," written in the early 19th century, feels entirely post-modern, unconcerned with the traditional rules of storytelling, made eager and purposefully wild by its own tangents. It was the perfect thing to read during a wait-ful, clerky afternoon (though I'm going to hope my complexion never rose to the level of hemorrhoidal; I avoid mirrors; I wouldn't know), and as I read, I thought about how this story came to be in my hands in the first place. How the book itself was a gift from Ivy Goodman, a writer of surprising talents, whom I'd never have met had I not been asked to review her collection of short stories, A Chapter from Her Upbringing, eight years ago. She wrote a letter of thanks; we became enduring friends.

It has happened like that for me, many times. Being sent a book in the mail by, for example, Elizabeth Taylor at the Chicago Tribune, or John Prendergast at The Pennsylvania Gazette, or Kate Moses, formerly of Salon.com, and discovering, all of a sudden, an author who speaks to me so clearly from the page and emerges, one way or the other, as a lasting companion in this book life. Sy Montgomery and her pink dolphins (and tigers and bears and birds). Robb Forman Dew and her gorgeous, period novels. Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, whose essays I read long in advance of meeting her, and who is here, every day, in my life.

Books connect us, and not always in foreseeable fashion. So that now, whenever I think of Gogol, I will think of Ivy, and when I think of Ivy, I will think of her own power as a writer and a friend. And I will be grateful for the knots and strings that are yet becoming my life.

Display Comments Add a Comment