Okay, so I have to confess that I didn’t make up that title. I got that from CREDO a while back when the GOP was shouting about reforming Wall Street and it now graces the back of my vehicle. As is quoted on the CREDO website, Republicans like Bachmann and Beck are . . .
Read MoreI was born in a country usually described by those subscribing to the dominant paradigm of development as being poor and developing. Year after year, beginning from first grade, in our classrooms both public and private (we have a national curriculum), we learned mathematics, reading and writing, but also world history. We . . .
Read MoreIt’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk books. Many things got in the way including travel home to Sri Lanka for the Galle International Literary Festival and to London for the book launch there as well as the more personal difficulties of coping with the various blows of life . . .
Read MoreHaters – slang, defines those who have nothing positive to say about anything or anybody, and feel somebody else owes them everything and, if they don’t give them everything, they deserve to be hated. They are people mad at the world but probably simply mad at themselves, as pointed out here, or . . .
Read MoreI keep being pressed to write about the Galle International Literary Festival at which I was a guest. Some of the requests have been the result of simple interest in my impressions as both native and visitor, others have been somewhat hostile. I have never been an either with us or against . . .
Read MoreIt is now 2 a.m. on the 27th of January, 2010 in Sri Lanka and the election results are 68.32% for President Mahinda Rajapakse and 31.32% for Sarath Fonseka. Maybe it is no big deal to win against someone who did not take the trouble to register himself to vote in the . . .
Read MoreThe week has passed by in a blur as I get ready to leave for Sri Lanka and then to London. Anybody in either place, do come to one or more of the events being planned. Click here for details Meanwhile, last week, I wrote about Independent Book Stores for the Huffington . . .
Read MoreThis was an article that I wrote which was was intended for a news source here in the U.S. I am re-posting it here with the necessary links. On Sunday, the NYT put Sri Lanka at number one on its list of places to go in 2010: “For a quarter century, Sri . . .
Read MoreFive years ago today, I was still fast asleep when the 2004 tsunami swept over large parts of my island country, Sri Lanka. A friend called me from Washington DC, where she was working, to tell give me this cryptic message: “There was a tsunami in Thailand but don’t worry, your brother . . .
Read MoreI’m over at the amazing Huffington Post Books blog, talking about the dos and do nots for writers while on Facebook. Why? Because a gazillion of us use Facebook and because nearly half that number use it as the sole means of promoting ourselves and our books. It felt right to get . . .
Read MoreI am over at The Debutante Ball today, blogging on the topic of ‘Day Jobs,’ which I have contrived to turn into a discussion of the way in which the industry responds to women writers v. male writers. Here’s a clip: Women writers are rarely profiled with baby on hip and hand . . .
Read MoreThere are things for which we are never prepared. Childbirth is one of them. The loss of a mother is another. It has been said that, as human beings, there are only three or so significant decisions that we make: whom we marry, whether or not to have children, where we choose . . .
Read MoreThis is a gripe about a trip with a few inconveniences. The Amtrak train that I was on was heading its peaceable way to Boston from Philly when its engine conked. As a woman with a near psychotic schedule, I was not overly perturbed to be given an extra hour on what . . .
Read MoreOn the road with the book, there’s a question people keep coming back to that I find a little odd, and it concerns women and the strength of the female characters in my novel. I think Eric Forbes’ interview with me is the best example of this, and my response to him . . .
Read MoreHi to Wendy Robards who is visiting via a guest post today. Her regular home is at www.caribousmom.com where she hosts a literary blog about books, reviews, reading challenges and other word-wise thoughts. Wendy is in Maine, the place where I wrote my first (bad) book and my novel, A Disobedient Girl, . . .
Read MoreI’m over at the Lost in Books site guest posting a few thoughts about raising cross-cultural children in America. There’s an excerpt below. Click this link for the full post and browse Rebecca’s other love, design through the Ruby’s Upcycled Designs site which has a hundred other links to gorgeous treasures made . . .
Read MoreBecause of the book tour – and two periods of being pretty sick – I have been unable to keep up with the blog as diligently as I had tried to do before. Also because of these same things I have not been able to stay abreast of everything about which I . . .
Read MoreGuest Post #3 is from Gail, whose blog-home Ticket to Anywhere I am visiting today. Here is a peek we rarely get – as writers – into what motivates the bloggers who review us. She decided to share twenty questions she had answered for Book Blogger Appreciation Week and I am posting . . .
Read MoreGuest Post #2 is from Serena M. Agusto-Cox of Savvy Verse & Wit whose blog I am visiting today. Savvy Verse & Wit began as a book review site and has transformed itself into a hub of poetry, poets, and helping readers discover contemporary poets through interviews and guest posts. I’ve been . . .
Read MoreThe first of many guest posts from my fellow bloggers. This one is from Hannah Nielsen, whose website, wordlily.wordpress.com is a true home for a bibliophile. It also happens to feature a review of A Disobedient Girl today. Addendum: Just came across this website on words: http://savethewords.org/ I’m honored to be offered . . .
Read MoreIt is a little shameful that I have not written a word here since that last brief bleep from the mountain in the wee hours of the morning of the 14th of August. But only just a little. Last year, the summer before Bread Loaf, I suffered a head injury as I . . .
Read MoreAs a way of expressing my thanks to the bookstores at which I read, I offer up my blog-space to the owners so they can say whatever comes to mind. Some of the earlier readings were at bigger stores where, for obvious reasons, it was not possible for me to make this . . .
Read More…I do not know. The world seems to fall away and whatever concerns I set out with seem to seep out and leave me empty and ready for something better when I drive up the mountain to Bread Loaf. I would like to write about being here, but it is nearly impossible . . .
Read MoreThe mini-van is actually a clapped out jalopy. When I take her into the local Firestone place down the street for inspection she is tucked way in the back. Parked, I kid thee not, next to the dumpster. People who are car-proud usually keep them sticker-free. Here are some photographs of the . . .
Read MoreThe words, “The End” apparently only exist for the purposes of lulling very small and, presumably, unimaginative children, into believing that stories should only be entertained so long as an author has control over the words. There is no other place that I have found which can lay claim to those words. . . .
Read MoreIf I delay this post for one more day I fear I will have to make it a photo essay. My love of words is sandwiched by my love of dance and my love of photographs, and the camera has taken over my life this week! There’s a sample gallery below. The . . .
Read MoreThere are people who take the comparison between pets and children very badly; I am one of those curmudgeons. I am quite certain that, similarly, there are many who would consider the launch of a book a sad and inappropriate approximation to childbirth. And yet, as I have discovered, there is something . . .
Read MoreThe world is divided into two kinds of people. Those who are empathetic toward cyclicsts as they wend their precarious way on streets made only for vehicles of the gas-guzzling variety, and those who treat cyclists like flies at a picnic. I’ve been thinking about such things, lately, as I pedal my . . .
Read MoreWhen I first began blogging, I did it every day. I considered it a writing exercise that combined both the business of staying in touch with that of political commentary. A month or so into that I found that I was writing every few days and then once a week. It takes . . .
Read MoreIt’s been a couple of weeks since I got back from Chicago, but the conversation which I wanted to write about then is still on my mind and will be for a while. There was a bottle of wine and a group of writers discussing the matter of America, what could be . . .
Read MoreOkay, so this was supposed to be about conversations in Chicago about politics, but there’s time for that. I wanted to share this link that a friend posted on FB about the ‘Ten Benefits of Rising Early & How To Do It.’ which is written by author, Leo Babauto. Here’s #1: Greet . . .
Read MoreIt’s been a week since I’ve been back from Chicago where I experienced a range of emotions. I got to be intensely frustrated, for instance, by having to look for a table as though we were trying to birth Jesus in a manger, and then having to wait an hour for no . . .
Read MoreI went for my first appointment today. I saw Dr. Weiss, who explained things in terms of crime-scenes and neighborhoods and light-houses emitting stay-away signals. My favorite was her description of my “unforgiving, grudge-holding nerves,” determined to exact revenge. The way I deal with them is up to me, she told me, . . .
Read MoreFirst of all, I no longer love flying. I hate it. The wings looked like they had been painted in the air by a mathematically inclined seven year old child. They did not look substantial. It did not help that my first seat assignment placed a pilot next to me who looked . . .
Read MoreYuck. I hate leaving home just before I have to. Once I do, I resign myself to the world outside and generally have a whale of a time. I will be in Chicago – if all goes well (this is my version of the Moslem, “Insha’Allah” – if God wishes) – from . . .
Read MoreThis is a follow up to the post I wrote about what has been going on with me in the past several weeks. Is it possible to be delighted by the prospect of undergoing radiation therapy for every day for 6-7 weeks? Take it from me, it is. I spent the morning . . .
Read MoreI had wanted to write this blog post a while back. But it seems that every new day during the past several weeks has brought with it yet another layer of meaning that, in its development, mirrors the layers of skin, tissue, musculature, nerves, blood vessels and so forth that are beyond . . .
Read MoreI check email religiously throughout the day, but my most fervorful check of all is the first of the morning. Early. And today, instead of the usual culling of pieces of information and shards of news that cut like unswept glass underfoot, I came across the brilliance of three friends, all of . . .
Read MoreI found today’s article in the NYT about hugging between teenagers extremely heart-warming. Back in Sri Lanka and, I gather, in many other non-Western countries, touching is common. Policemen in Sri Lanka stand about in the middle of streets, holding hands – usually with civilian friends – letting the traffic go haywire. . . .
Read MoreI have been away from the blog for a few days now – more on all that, I’m sure, at some later date when I have figured out how to talk about the latest discoveries of my life! Meanwhile, I wanted to share this aerial view of Sri Lanka. I had never . . .
Read MoreReflections at the dawn of the ‘Post-LTTE Moment’ by Malinda Seneviratne This is a momentous occasion for Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans, regardless of ideological persuasion and preferred Utopia. Whether or not, as some have (in my opinion injudiciously) predicted, the LTTE will revert to its guerrilla avatar, it is clear that . . .
Read MoreIn August of 2005, I met someone who would turn out to be my kindred soul, my brother from another life, and a friend unlike any other. It was my first year at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, that place of much beauty, equal pain and a creative energy that all but . . .
Read MoreIn my purse, I carry a note which describes the clinical condition of a woman I knew. Tracy was not a good friend of mine in any real sense of the word; I did not share my life with her, not ask her for any help. For one, we moved in different . . .
Read MoreA few years ago I found myself in a packed theater in a small town in Maine. The Waterville Opera House is one of those gems that we want to keep close; complete with scrolled sides and ornately framed, curving proscenium, an orchestra pit, and sloped seating. Not to mention people with . . .
Read MoreWell, I don’t know if I have swine flu. Maybe the question is, how would anybody ever escape any viral virulence when all I see are germs – on the train, in the metro, public rest rooms (which I prefer to call public distress room!), and the head-rests of seats anywhere. The . . .
Read MoreI should have written this while I was still sneezing among the dogwood, tulips and cherry blossoms, but DC has a way of taking up all available space, time and mind and I have a way of dancing to the music… I was in the area for a multitude of reasons: community . . .
Read MoreI am rushing off to catch various modes of transport to head to Washington, DC, but I wanted to share this beautiful song that I heard this morning. It is a song called ‘It Wont Be Like This For a Long Time.‘ I guess these are the thoughts that come to mind . . .
Read MoreIn an article in the NY Observer, Leon Neyfakh poses this question: ‘Should Literary Novels Be More Like The Wire?’ First of all, let me say that I am a devotee of the now safely in TV history series, The Wire, a world that was made available to me through access to . . .
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Read MoreThe photographs coming out of the Summit of the Americas, to which Cuba may soon return, are heart-warming in more ways than one. The absence of a shifty eyed, inarticulate representative from the United States and the presence of a new president on whom all of the member states, as well as . . .
Read MoreIt is a congenital defect (or strength), of mine, that I feel compelled to offer myself up where I feel I could be of some use. I am still waiting to see how this plays out now that I have a book coming out and another yet to be finished, a book . . .
Read MoreI’ve been away from the blog for a few days on account of a last-minute rush to keep several fires going at the same time – the heart needs heat and sometimes that means more than one stove, apparently! Anyway, as I hopped on the Philly-NYC bolt bus for the sweet price . . .
Read MoreContinuing the discussion on Hair, I post below an unabridged, uncensored anonymous guest comment from a good friend: “Hair” opened on Broadway while I was in elementary school in New York City. It was a succes de scandale: naked women appeared in the finale (I heard at one of my parents’ parties) . . .
Read MoreAll of you who are in the writing world have probably either (a) read this yourself or (b) had it recommended to you by a friend and intend to get to it soon. By “this” I mean A.O. Scott’s tribute to the short story in the NYT yesterday, entitled, fittingly, ‘Brevity’s Pull.’ . . .
Read MoreSo everybody has heard, by now, that the Boston Globe was threatened with closure by its owner, the NYT Co. The demand is for the unions to agree to $20 million worth of concessions: Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90- minute meeting . . .
Read MoreI wasn’t able to write anything the last two days because I’ve been occupied with the business of countering misinformation on the political front. I won’t go into that in any great detail here, for now, since the day will soon be here when I must let that life seep through into . . .
Read MoreJune 24-July 9 University of Iowa International Writing Program/Life of Discovery This is the second leg of the program in cross-cultural exchange in creative writing between American and Chinese writers lead by Christopher Merill, along with Matt Hart, Kiki Petrosino, Kyle Dargan and Vu Tran.
Read MoreI am not sure how old I was when my older brothers and I, our lives unfolding in a still-quiet Sri Lanka, began singing “Good morning starshine, the earth says hello..you twinkle above us, we twinkle below…Good morning starshine, you lead us along…my love and me as we sing our early morning . . .
Read MoreSo, I knew this already, truly, I’m that much of a dorkish digger of obscure factoids. Today’s Daily Beast line up of the famous and their courses of undergraduate study featured the enigmatic Rahm Emanuel and the revelation that the White House Chief of Staff passed up the Joffrey Ballet to study . . .
Read MoreIs Facebook a democracy and can it, really, lead to world peace?
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