Category Archives: spirituality
Showalter: memoir is a ‘radical act’
My interview with Shirley Hershey Showalter concludes with her discussion of her writing process and of her vision for the potential for memoir, a “radical act,” to build peace in the world. Q: You prepared for writing a memoir by … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, memoir, poetry, spirituality, working method
Finding her memoir’s ‘topic sentence’
I want to prepare for the hour of my death by living one good day at a time. And I want to help others to do the same. —Shirley Hershey Showalter’s mission statement Shirley Showalter is an essayist, blogger, speaker, … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, electronic publishing, memoir, spirituality, working method
Shirley Showalter, ubuntu & memoir
Become an observer of your own creative process. It will help you uncover where you “sing” and where your voice falls flat. When you lose track of time and are not thinking about yourself at all but rather about your … Continue reading
Filed under electronic publishing, memoir, MFA, NOTED, spirituality, teaching, working method
Christopher Hitchens, God & me, pt. 3
O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened … Continue reading
Filed under evolutionary psychology, existentialism, MY LIFE, spirituality
Christopher Hitchens, God & me, pt. 2
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of … Continue reading
Filed under evolutionary psychology, existentialism, MY LIFE, spirituality
Christopher Hitchens, God & me, pt. 1
That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and … Continue reading
Filed under evolutionary psychology, existentialism, MY LIFE, spirituality
Virginia Woolf’s ‘moments of being’
The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. In those moments I find one of my greatest … Continue reading
Filed under memoir, NOTED, spirituality
Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Sketch of the Past’
From it all I gathered one obstinate and enduring conception. That nothing is to be so much dreaded as egotism. Nothing so cruelly hurts the person himself; nothing so wounds those who are forced into contact with it.—Virginia Woolf, writing … Continue reading
Filed under emotion, memoir, NOTED, spirituality
Flannery O’Connor’s scary scowl
While searching for something else entirely, I came across this remarkable interview on Vimeo with Flannery O’Connor’s good friend Louise Abbot, who discusses O’Connor’s disdain for fame, among other things. The unusual, very occasional blog where I found the interview … Continue reading
Filed under fiction, NOTED, spirituality
Flannery O’Connor, Harper Lee, Walker Percy
My southern fiction orgy last summer started with Flannery O’Connor. Since I often dip into her stories, I bought and read the latest bio of her, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch. I hoped to learn how … Continue reading
Filed under fiction, NOTED, sentimentality, spirituality, syntax, theme
