by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jul 13, 2010 | continuous life, journeys, life, memory, mfa, place, time |
On Saturday, July 3rd, I took a break from lectures and readings and slid into my rented red Prius headed for the past. Even though Ferrisburg, Vermont, lies directly west from Montpelier, Google Maps directed me north to Burlington and then south. In addition to my...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jun 8, 2010 | catching moments, continuous life, journeys, memory |
The summer I was thirteen I flew by myself to Vermont for seven weeks of camp. Somebody in our cabin had brought a record player, and it was there in the woods that I first heard the music of James Taylor and Carole King. After I got back home, I bought their albums....
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Aug 25, 2009 | details, memory, reading |
The Music Room by Dennis McFarland was published in 1990. I read it the first time in 1991, and then again at the beginning of August–eighteen years later. I enjoyed it just as much. Here, McFarland could be describing his own writing, instead of a feeling:...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jul 13, 2009 | craft of writing, details, memoir, memory, reviews, shapes |
I don’t write memoir. But I like the way Abigail Thomas writes, the way she tells the truth. “My truth doesn’t travel in a straight line, it zigzags, detours, doubles back. Most truths I have to learn over and over again.” I got hooked on the...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | May 7, 2009 | craft of writing, memoir, memory, reviews, time |
Frank Conroy was the director of the Iowa Writers Workshop for 18 years. He was also a writer himself, the author of 5 books, including the “classic memoir” Stop-Time. He died of colon cancer in 2005 at the age of 69. “My faith in the firmness of...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Apr 29, 2009 | catching moments, craft of writing, memory, reviews |
“We weren’t really stealing them…But we call it stealing to make it more exciting.” Per Petterson is a writer who can stand inside a moment, turn in a circle and look up and down until there is no inch of that moment left unexplored. Mary...
