Magical Memoir Moments
Contests, Gilchrist, and a Poem: Mini-Memoir
Without the Kalamazoo Gazette Literary Award Competition of 2007, I would not be writing this blog. Each year the announcement of the award kicks me into gear again, and I review what I have written that might fit. The writing itself happens throughout the year, often in 2-3 day retreats at Gilchrist, the Fetzer Institute…
Holding Class Outdoors: A Springtime Mini-Memoir
People often ask me, “What do you miss most about not being a college president anymore?” My answer always is “the students.” Right now students and faculty at Goshen College are frantically preparing for the end of the semester and commencement. But I know what many of them will be doing tomorrow in 70-degree weather. …
Ava's Man: A Review And A Question for You
The top 100 memoirs list we are constructing here is not a scientific one. At the rate we are going, 81 posts in 9 months, and only 18 reviews so far, it will take five years to get to 100 memoirs! I’ve read many more than I have reviewed and have an entire bookcase of…
All Over but the Shoutin': A Review
This book reminds me of the wilted dandelions my son used to gather and bring to me in springtime–not the dandelions themselves but the look on his face, beaming with pride and ardor. Rick Bragg has never lost that feeling about his momma. He brought her all his winnings–first the Pulitzer Prize in journalism, then…
You Can Go Home Again–A Mini-Memoir
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, likes to call itself the Garden Spot of the World. If you travel to Lancaster in the springtime, you understand. The greens penetrate deeper than the human eye can see, and the earth, well, it’s as soft and receptive as any coquette and more fertile than a hutch full of rabbits. I…
The Happiness Project Model: Exploring My Goals for Blogging
This blog post will test-drive a new category: writing tips and marketing tips. My goals in setting up this blog were four-fold: 1. To learn more about social media by practicing it. 2. To educate myself about the genre of memoir by reading 100 memoirs and reviewing them for a group of people also interested…
Intellectual Awakening–A Mini-Memoir
I was in second grade. The teacher put a word up on the chalk board and asked us to figure out what it was. M-A-N-U-R-E Looking back, one wonders why Mrs. Rothenberger picked that word for a competition to motivate second graders, but at the time all I knew was that we were given a…
Mini-Memoir: What I Learned from Students in Haiti and the Ivory Coast (on SST)
The question comes to me from a blogger in Orange County, CA, who has a following in her own blog from ex-patriots all over the world. What did you learn from your students in Haiti and in the Ivory Coast? First of all, you need to know about the Goshen College Study-Service Term (SST). This…
Memoir Clusters: A Guest Blog Post
Today’s guest blogger is writer and editor Lanie Tankard who is a long-time friend. My husband Stuart enjoys taking credit for Lanie’s romance and marriage to Jim Tankard, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, because Stuart suggested that Lanie contact Jim about a summer program–back in 1972. This picture of…