being a woman

vulnerability

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i reworked an old essay of mine titled “MEmory” and shortened it so i could submit to CBC Creative Nonfiction contest.  it was difficult to do for a variety of reasons, mostly emotional.  it’s an essay about my grief after my Mom died and, in it, i’m as honest as i can be.  this kind … Read more

i avoid personal stories

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and i don’t know why beyond fear.  and conditioning.  but every once in a while my stories show up inside my fiction and it’s always a surprise.  it happens when i’m in flow.  yesterday i wrote about changing my mom’s dressings for the first time, hands shaking.  oh, i placed the scene inside a story … Read more

abandoned suitcases

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an article/project about abandoned suitcases. http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/abandoned-suitcases-reveal-private-lives-of-insane-asylum-patients/ i’ve worked with mentally ill folks and the stuff they packed was fascinating. in my days in the ER doing psych assessments, i would ask to see their suitcases. you can tell a lot by the manner in which a bag is packed and, also, by who packed it. … Read more

vanishing

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i inhaled a beautiful book called THE VANISHING OF ESME LENNOX by Maggie O’Farrell.  set in the 1930s, it’s a story about a young woman who’s caught wearing her mother’s negligee and institutionalized.  the negligee, of course, is the last straw for a lifetime of being different.  of wandering away from her desk at school. … Read more