When I was in San Diego I had the opportunity to join my friend (novelist, founder of DimeStories, and literary hostess and pie maker extraordinnaire) Amy Wallen for her PEN In the Classroom gig at the City Heights Community Center. She teaches two groups of high school students who are participating in a marine biology [...]
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Judy skyped in for the meeting, but her video had frozen so we posed like her for the photo (tho some of us don't know our left from our right) On Friday, April 13 I successfully defended my dissertation, “Reconstructing My Mother.” It still seems so surreal… I’m not sure if any of [...] Last night I decided to take a look at my manuscript for the first time since turning in the copies to my committee members. I re-read the preface, and began flipping through the pages looking for excerpts to read aloud at the defense. And I know I’m writing about grief, and death and cancer, [...] Friday at 8:30 a.m. I sent “Reconstructing My Mother,” my 226 page manuscript, aka my dissertation, off to the Copy Center where they will print out and coil bind 7 copies for me to distribute to my committee and my colleagues. A part of me is pleased. I have completed the thing that is [...] I’ve been working on this project, Reconstructing My Mother, since 2005 when I signed up for a memoir class at the Taos Summer Writers Conference. The instructor letter said, among other things, “Send 10-25 pages of your manuscript…. bla bla bla” Yeah. After the word “manuscript” my vision blurred then my brain went into [...] Why is it when you I have a project due, something BIG like, say a dissertation, you I suddenly find other things to do? Bigger, shinier things? Instead of just finishing the thing, I dream about what’s next, I plan my garden, I get BIG ideas–I have a million of them, none with earning potential, of [...] Not calling after a date is one thing. “Forgetting” to return a call (or two or twenty) from that friend who you now realize is craZy (and not in a good way) is socially acceptable. But not replying, in any way shape or form, to not just a job application (from a [...] January 28 is the anniversary of my mother’s death. Sometimes I forget, but my body always remembers. I become achy. I want to hunker down in my own house, stay in bed longer than usual. Here in Albuquerque it’s easy to chalk it up to winter–January is the coldest month–but it’s neither winter nor [...] The comment from my professor and the chair of my dissertation committee, scrawled at the bottom of a section titled “Baking Banana Bread,” and barely legible said: “I think this section needs to do more.” But WHAT? I wanted to scream. Instead, I pondered, I mulled, I percolated, I discussed with friends. Did [...] Anyone who has followed my blog (both of you) may have noticed that I’ve not posted anything since–gasp!– July! The good news is that I’ve been focused on other writing endeavors, most importantly The Dissertation– the book that I am writing that will get me the M.F.A. in creative writing for which I came to [...] |
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