While I'm awaiting feedback on my novel, I've been dabbling in other writing. Of course I'm always writing poems, but I'm now ensconced in editing some of the poems I wrote during our trip to Africa with the goal of putting together a book of images with poems. I've also written a couple of pieces of short fiction, inspired by an article I read in "The New Yorker" a few weeks ago about Lydia Davis, a short story master. According to her Amazon page: "Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the acclaimed translator of a new edition of Swann's Way and is at work on a new translation of Madame Bovary." I immediately bought a copy of The Collected Short Stories of Lydia Davis. What intrigues me is that she writes stories of varying lengths - some only a short paragraph or a line or two long. I like writing short poems -- Haiku and Twitter-140-character poems -- so I like the … [Read more...]
Short Fiction Break
Ask the author
One of the best experiences I had while we were on our recent trip to New England and the East Coast was being a guest at my great niece, Anna's first grade class in Fairfax, Virginia. The class was working on a poetry unit. They had spent a lot of time in the last two months writing and illustrating Ouch, Acrostic, Animal, Color, and Haiku poems in preparation for a program for family and friends called Poetry and Punch. At first I thought Jessica, the teacher, wanted me to give them a lesson in writing Haiku the poetry form they were currently working on. But, no. They already were writing them and knew all about the form. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was going to have a Question and Answer session with them. Jessica had the children sit on the rug in the front of the room and introduced me as Anna's Aunt Madeline, the author. She then gave them the opportunity to ask me any questions they had about my work as a writer and author. And from the very first … [Read more...]
