-
Jumping Over Shadows
I’ll admit there was probably no way I wasn’t going to love Annette Gendler’s 2017 memoir Jumping Over Shadows. I’m a sucker for cross-cultural romances, and for international dramas liberally sprinkled with phrases in foreign languages–especially when those languages are French, German, and Hebrew. And I can’t remember ever reading a novel or memoir of Jewish…
-
The Hand on the Mirror
Less than four years after their wedding, Janis Heaphy Durham’s husband Max passed away from cancer. Durham was a spiritual person, raised in the Presbyterian church and blessed with a strong faith in God, but even if she suspected that death was not the end, she was entirely unprepared for what happened next. In fact, I doubt…
-
The boy who wanted to be a Jew
Julius Lester writes in his book Lovesong: Becoming a Jew that as a young black boy growing up in the American South his favorite piece to play on the piano was Kol Nidre, the song that opens the observance of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. “When I stop playing,” he writes, “there is a painful yearning in my stomach,…
-
Promised by Heaven
At 21, Mary Helen Hensley had a near-death experience in which she not only saw a play-by-play review of her current life, but she suddenly remembered all the lives she’d lived before. As the daughter of a Baptist minister, she didn’t even have reincarnation on her radar. But there it was, portrayed in heaven as a reality. There are…
-
The Angel in My Pocket
When I picked up Sukey Forbes’ new memoir, The Angel in My Pocket, my first thought was, “Oh, another memoir about grief.” It’s not that I don’t appreciate grief-focused memoirs. In fact, they’ve been a lifeline for me in the four years since losing my ex-fiancé. Even though my own loss was due to separation, not death, I’ve found comfort and…
-
A Life in Mud
There are not many books I’ve read more than once. While my appetite for the written word is pretty much insatiable, I’m generally hungry for something new. Fortunately, this is not as much of a vice in reading as it would be in other spheres of life. But every now and then, a book comes along that inspires in me a…
-
Turns Out, Fun Is Essential to Writing
Whether you’re an aspiring or accomplished writer, you’ve likely had moments (or years at a time) when you’ve worried that you just didn’t have what it takes. I certainly have. I’m a very methodical and analytic person, and for a long time, I thought that these personality traits might prevent me from ever producing a compelling piece of…
-
The Baltimore Review
The Summer 2014 issue of The Baltimore Review is now available online. On its site, you can read not only one of my recent flash nonfiction pieces, “Cop Cars,” but also some excellent poetry and fiction from writers around the country. My favorite pieces from this issue include: Vincent Poturica’s short story “Habte,” about an Eritrean immigrant at a child’s…
-
Swedish Lessons
My favorite part of reading blogs is discovering extremely gifted writers whose self-published books I might never otherwise have heard of. My most recent ecstatic find is Natalie Burg, author of the hilarious, page-turning memoir Swedish Lessons. An ambitious but slightly directionless 23-year-old fresh out of a soul-crushing romantic relationship, Burg is offered a position as…
-
Scandalously Happy
I am scandalously happy. The sun is setting in a pink sky, the May breeze is turning slightly cool, and I’m sitting on my front steps gazing at the abandoned field just beyond my front lawn and reveling in this surprising truth that unveiled itself moments ago. Why ‘scandalously’, you ask? Well, because it’s kind of a scandal to be happy in…
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, PhD 