An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
Last night I attended a “reading” of works from the recent issue of Water*Stone, published by Hamline University’s MFA Program in Writing. Since I’m an occasional teacher in the overarching program called Graduate Liberal Studies, I have a stake in … Continued
I like to think the gaps between generations are not defined (in the U.S.) by technological changes, but so they are. My adorable, 94-year-old Cousin Eleanor teases her 40-something gynecologist that she not only remembers radio and newsreels but pre-radio. … Continued
My father used to complain that in my mother’s house, he walked on flowers, sat on flowers, ate on flowers and slept on flowers. My mother must have taken this as a compliment because she never changed the decor. It … Continued
A wonderful class of graduate students and I have started discussing how history and story intersect. We began with Doctorow’s Ragtime and the movie made from the novel. Next we read August Wilson’s play, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which the … Continued
They couldn’t be more different in character, though two are quasi-calico, the third and youngest, Julia, is black and white, a tuxedo cat. My kidding quasi son-in-law informs me she’s a kitler or cat with Hitler moustache. Like humans,our cats … Continued
Cooking by instinct didn’t happen overnight. In fact, in that first tiny kitchen, New York City circa 1965, I’m not even sure I could hardboil an egg. But I knew what, among my mother’s rather bland fare, I could taste … Continued
It was my mother’s term, the snooty, smalltown mayor’s daughter from North Dakota–riffraff. Whom she meant, years ago when I began to hear her choice of words, I don’t know–maybe some of my teenage friends. But now it pops up … Continued
Not at all heavy because they cover bodies of light bones that want to rise. When my father died, it was the first death of the older generation. He had declined slowly, and I had seen him only intermittently. He … Continued
When I published The Story in History in 1992, the idea of using historical material to inspire creative writing was far from new–there was, after all, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, 1869, not to mention the Shakespeare plays about all those … Continued
I hadn’t a clue in high school and college–gay life wasn’t recognized in polite Charleston, South Carolina society during the 1950s and 60s. Yes, rock n rollers with duck tails and pompadours rumbled against the crew cuts, but they all … Continued