Dear friends -- Another month in that academic year that feels like a decade known as 2020-2021 lumbers on. How is it possible for time to fly AND crawl? No idea. But that's how it feels. Too fast and too slow. Proust's proofing of the first volume ... courtesy of Wikipedia I am now onto … Continue reading Where did April go?…. More reading, some thinking, some writing
Category: Art and Literature
where did March go? answer: reading…
Dear friends of the unreal -- I've been busily re-reading the writing of my wonderful MFA thesis director, Kathleen Alcalá. I was fortunate enough to get a review article about her published by TIKKUN Magazine and you can read that review article here: :https://www.tikkun.org/solitude-intersectionality-eco-judaism-and-community-in-the-writing-of-kathleen-alcala/ What I don't say in the article is how influenced my … Continue reading where did March go? answer: reading…
My novelette RESCUE PLAN comes out February 10th!
I have a new book coming out this week! RESCUE PLAN features a teenage cancer survivor who is struggling to sort out his sexual identity. He also sees spirits. RESCUE PLAN takes place in Narrow Interior, the strange New England town of my debut novel THE PUPPET TURNERS. Here are some advance reviews from two … Continue reading My novelette RESCUE PLAN comes out February 10th!
january hauntings
Happy New Year dear friends of the unreal -- Late last fall, my friend Mark Givens told me about a publishing venture he was working on with his friend Dennis. Mark and I ended up agreeing that this new publisher -- Bamboo Dart Press -- would launch a story of mine that was too long … Continue reading january hauntings
Happy December! Here’s a tiny bit of speculative nonfiction about my mom
Friends -- hope you are doing ok during this weird winter of 2020. December is the birthday month of my mother, the late Barbé Hammer, and it is fitting that a piece I wrote about her and my brilliant mother in law Charlotte Behrendt has gone live over at the 10th Anniversary issue of THE … Continue reading Happy December! Here’s a tiny bit of speculative nonfiction about my mom
my gratitude problem
Friends -- Looking towards the USA celebration of Thanksgiving tomorrow, there has been a gradual build-up in gratitude practices on social media and elsewhere. In my Jewish spirituality learning group – called a chavruta – we’ve been talking about it too. In that group I admitted something embarrassing: this gratitude stuff grates on me. It … Continue reading my gratitude problem
October 26th 2020 — Choose
Dear Friends of the Unreal -- I have put off writing my blog entry for October because I haven't known what to write. I have kept on hoping that some piece of fiction, some work of cinema or television, or even some experience would be something I could share to distract us from the events … Continue reading October 26th 2020 — Choose
An excerpt from my story at THE BRIDGE, Volume 2
Friends -- Sometimes, a story that you struggle with becomes the story that soars between countries, becoming part of an international conversation, bridging readers and writers from far away communities. That's what happened with my story "Nothing Like Chongqing." Inspired by my actual trip to China, this magical realist tale was one that I labored … Continue reading An excerpt from my story at THE BRIDGE, Volume 2
New Story! an excerpt from A QUIET AFTERNOON
Friends of the unreal -- Imagine my delighted surprise to have a piece included in this lovely speculative anthology as -- once again -- the rule breaker story. This time, time though, my hybrid prose poem/flash fiction is the most "realist" of the group (which is pretty hilarious). Here is the beginning of "12 Attempts … Continue reading New Story! an excerpt from A QUIET AFTERNOON
lamentations/celebrations/lamentations — attempt #2
Friends -- as we reach the end of July of this strange, unreal feeling year, I am experiencing with renewed force the power of the Jewish holiday known as Tisha B' Av. Tisha B'Av commemorates the fall of Jerusalem Temples 1 and 2, but in a larger sense, it commemorates the totality of Jewish catastrophes. … Continue reading lamentations/celebrations/lamentations — attempt #2
