I’m grieving the loss of dictionaries, thick, massive volumes that I used to get lost in. I would open a page and find hundreds of words, all of them demanding my attention, each a miniature world to explore. But now I’ve become a victim of on-line lexicons because they are handier than putting aside my laptop computer and marching into the other room to unload the Oxford from a bookshelf where it resides. (more…)
Foghorns blast through the 7 AM San Francisco overcast. The only woman in the place, I saunter into the longshoreman’s union hall, trying to appear as if I did this every day. A few cigarette-scarred wooden tables offer a place for the men to gather and talk while waiting to be called to work. Billowing clouds of cigarette smoke hang ominously over everyone. 
Like detectives, writers need to be constantly observant, picking up clues from what people are wearing, how they gesture, the words they speak, the way they interact with others. They study people’s facial expressions and what they might suggest about the person, storing away the data in their memory banks. Or they’ll take notes in a writer’s journal that they’ll refer to later. 
Memoir writing blurs the line between truth and imagination in this revealing conversation with Lily Iona MacKenzie. We explore how creative writing techniques shape both fiction narrative and personal stories, as Lily explains her unique approach: “you lie in service of the truth.”
Yesterday, I had to kill time (terrible metaphor) while waiting to hear a friend of mine do a reading of his newly published memoir at a Corte Madera bookstore. So I hung out at Marin County’s Corte Madera Library. 
For years I felt guilty about breaking the heirloom toys my stepfather’s mother had preserved, relics of another era. I can still remember the excitement of lifting each object out of the boxes where they had been stored and bringing them to life again: tiny china dishes with hand-painted flowers; a miniature stagecoach carrying riders and pulled by horses; dolls with porcelain faces and hands, features frozen in smiles, dressed in stylish Victorian gowns; a doll house with elegant furniture and a family. 
Editing writing requires tremendous restraint. I was reminded of this recently when a poem I had submitted to an anthology was accepted providing I approved of the editor’s changes. I’m open to thoughtful revision suggestions—a text can always be improved—but I assume the recommendations will be just that, insightful observations that cause me to re-think my work. In that light, I can re-enter a poem or story and see if any of the ideas resonate enough for me to make changes. Yet since I’m the poem’s creator, I expect to revise it myself and have the last word on its content. 
I’ve been thinking about how loosely we use abstract words like love, happiness, and truth as if they had concrete, observable meaning. I tend to revolt from using love to close my email or other exchanges unless I really feel love for the person I’m corresponding with. It bothers me when people sign their correspondence “love” without considering whether or not the emotion really applies to the recipient. Maybe you feel loving towards someone on most days, but not every day. Isn’t it deceitful to say “love” if you aren’t feeling it at the moment? Wouldn’t such a response seem confusing? It leads the reader to believe that the writer actually has such strong feelings, that somehow we’re part of the writer’s inner circle. Often that isn’t true. 
Being a first-rate writer requires the same kind of training that an architect receives. A typical program includes courses in architectural history and theory, building design, construction methods, professional practice, math, physical sciences, and liberal arts. Writers may not need to study math or the physical sciences, but they do need to give themselves the best liberal arts education they can find, both formal and informal. And like architects, in order to be successful in their field, writers need not only vision and a rich imagination but also a strong foundation. 
Thank you, Zackary Vernon, for taking the time to share your professional writing journey with me and my readers. 
Being part of an on-line writing group for several years has provided many benefits. But with the positives come a few negatives.
Until recently, if I had wanted a restful getaway, I would not have chosen San Francisco or any big city. Getting away meant heading out of town, usually for a coastal inn. I wanted the leisurely pace and ocean views of Mendocino, Pacific Grove, Carmel, or Big Sur. 
Onyx wind chimes shaped like birds hang outside my bedroom. Each time a breeze stirs them, their music reminds me of the first trip I took to Mexico. While there, I was hoping to discover a part of the country that photographs can’t capture—the spirit of the place. Lawrence Durrell claims that landscape communicates this aspect. He says, “All landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper, ‘I am watching you—are you watching yourself in me’?” 
I recently reread Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and have mixed feelings about the era and the characters. It’s difficult to read about Victorian morés from a 21st Century perspective. Not only do I need lenses that will give me a bi-cultural perspective, but I also feel squashed between a culture clash. Not long after I finished with Portrait, I read a review of A. M. Homes’ book May We Be Forgiven in The New York Review of Books. One of her main characters says, 
I’m remembering a fascinating article I read in the New York Review of Books some time ago about Joseph Cornell. In many ways, he feels like my spiritual father. I love his quirkiness, his living on the periphery, his unique vision. Reading about him makes me want to go out and haunt junk shops for interesting memorabilia to make things with, to start a collection that I can draw from. I had an image of turning an old radio into a kind of Cornell box. Uncovering Morocco in Paul Bowles’ The Spider’s Web
August 10, 2010
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I’ve bee rereading Paul Bowles’ The Spider’s Web, hoping to renew our nine-day visit to Morocco that we did some time ago. The book has added to my understanding of Moroccan life, its pluses and minuses. Reading it was similar to visiting another country. The novel offers its own Morocco, the country of Bowles’ imagination. But did it give me insight into Morocco I wouldn’t have had otherwise?
Yes. The Spider’s Web made vivid the French occupation of that country and took me inside its people’s feelings about this part of their history. Being there helped me to see that while the official occupation is over, the French (and others) still dominate. French is spoken as frequently as Arabic. And while officially France may not be in charge any longer, it still has a majority interest in most of the banks and other institutions. It’s not an easy relationship. Of the over 500 riads in Marrakesh’s Medina (the old section of Arab cities), only five or six are owned by Moroccans. That doesn’t mean only French people own the others, but it illustrates how powerless in certain ways some native Moroccans are.
Through Amar, the main character in The Spider’s Web, a fifteen year old
Moroccan, the book also helped me to understand what role Islam and Allah play in many devout Moroccans lives. The present is what is important. Not the future. The present and the past. In many ways, it’s a backward looking culture, medieval in many of its current practices. Donkey carts mix with people riding motorbikes and bicycles in the Medina. Allah rules these lives: if something good happens, Allah destined it. The same is true for ill-fortune. Amar made me feel he had little or no control over his future. Perhaps none of us do. But that isn’t necessarily a Western idea.
I keep chewing on the words Marrakesh, Fes, Rabat, the three imperial cities that we visited, extracting the last drop of foreignness from them, trying to discover in the words themselves why Morocco lingers on my tongue like a fantastic meal—or a good book. From the moment we landed at the Marrakesh airport, I knew we had arrived somewhere strange. Not strange as in outlandish but as in weird and wonderful.
The airport has a small town feel to it, there being no gates. We descended from the steps of the plane to Moroccan soil and approached the main building on foot. Inside passport control, blue tile trimming granite pillars (blue is associated with Berbers, indigenous peoples of North Africa) made the room seem almost charming. The main entrance has a soaring white ceiling in geometric patterns. Arabic and French on signs remind us that English doesn’t reign here. Nor do the usual Western driving courtesies. Most intersections don’t have signal lights and would probably be ignored anyway. Drivers also disregard pedestrians, who don’t have the right of way. They plunge into the chaos of cars, motorbikes, and bicycles that cram the streets, leaving their fate to Allah.
We saw this first hand when the driver from our riad, a handsome young man who spoke decent English, drove us to one of the many (19 in all) gates that access the Medina. Cars couldn’t enter, so a porter met us. He took our two suitcases, and my husband Michael and I followed him into a dusty, pot-holed cobblestone street, crowded on each side with fruit, meat, and vegetable stands; bakeries; and clothing stalls. We dodged people on motorbikes and bicycles and donkey carts, trying not to stare at the shop owners and their customers, who were gawking at us. Scrawny stray cats darted between people’s feet and into holes in the walls. Most stores were open to the street, so workers were on full view, stretching leather or hammering metal or building furniture.
This constant cacophony in the street contrasted sharply with our riad (Riad Kniza) and the-inward turning quality of the houses. They don’t usually have windows overlooking the street (except for peepholes so residents can see who is at the door), the interiors containing courtyards and gardens and even terraces that overlook the city. This inwardness mirrors something in The Spider’s Web. Most of the characters felt trapped in their own interiors, unable to connect meaningfully with others. But the book didn’t prepare me for our reception at our riad.
When we arrived, we were ushered in to one of the several lovely public spaces on the ground floor, graced with an array of antiques, and a sweet young man poured us glasses of hot mint tea and served Moroccan pastries (not too sweet). He did all of this with grace and style. The whole check in process had a ceremonial feel to it. Hannan, the woman who greeted us, moved very slowly, in a measured way, and the Riad itself felt serene and quiet. Arab music played in the background.
While we were enjoying our tea, the same young man took our bags to our room. We felt like guests in someone’s private home rather than tourists. The riad was 100 times better than I expected. It’s a 5 star place. We’ve never had a suite so sumptuous and beautiful. It has a huge living room, a large area with a massive king-size bed. A large (two basin) marble bathroom. The décor is Arab/Moroccan and exquisite: carved reliefs circle the top trim in the room and the cupola above our bed. We overlooked the courtyard, but it was quiet there. The whole place was quiet
On our first night, we walked to the central square in the Medina and were blown away by sights, sounds, smells, and colors. Locals and visitors strolled on the sidewalks, most headed for the main square (Jamaâ El Fna) unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Food stalls and vendors vie with acrobats and storytellers and anyone who has a shtick to peddle. It’s amazing the number of people who gather here each night to talk, look, and just interact at the end of each day. The square is huge and it attracts throngs of locals and visitors.
The old town has roots in medieval times, so we felt part of many historical layers there: young men are still apprenticing to learn basic crafts and to work with materials that have been lost in America to mass manufacturing and the machine: metal, leather, yarn (incredible to see how they die it non-chemically), etc. The Souqs are a feast for the eyes, a motley assembly of goods that are gorgeous to behold.
We would have been happy to stay in Marrakesh our whole time in Morocco, but Fes called to us, as it did to Bowles and his characters in The Spider’s Web.