Posts Tagged‘Essays’

Home » Essays » Page 64

Wednesday’s WIP: Memories, My German Passport & Me

by Erika Dreifus on
8

Grandma & Me at My Sister's College Graduation, 1994
Grandma & Me at My Sister’s College Graduation, 1994
So long as the anticipated snowstorm doesn’t shut down the city, before I head to the day job today, I’m stopping off at the German consulate, where I’m renewing my German passport. When I went online to book my appointment back in November–you need to make one, you can’t handle this by mail–I thought it was really something that the first available appointment was January 22: my German grandmother’s birthday.

As many of you already know, my grandmother–who would be 99 today–was a huge influence on the stories in my collection, Quiet Americans. Which celebrated the third anniversary of its publication a few days ago, too.

And as for my passport, it was the focus of one of my first published essays. The scan quality isn’t great, but I’ve uploaded a copy of “Passport from the Past,” which was published in the Boston Sunday Globe in 1997.

[UPDATE: The city schools (and my office) are open–but transit is dicey and non-essential travels around the city aren’t in the cards this morning. I’m going straight to work and rescheduling the consular appointment. I think that Grandma would approve!]

Sunday Sentence

by Erika Dreifus on
3

Another Sunday in which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, which asks others to share the best sentence(s) we’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

“As if the humanities were not in sufficiently dire straits, as if our graduates did not already need to struggle to manage their debt and find jobs in a bleak economy, as if public institutions of higher learning had not already seen their budgets slashed over the past few years, you have added fuel to the flames by turning the world’s attention to the ASA’s proclivity to political activism over scholarship and the intellectual exchange of ideas.”

Source: Sharon Ann Musher’s “Why I Left the American Studies Association,” a letter to the ASA leadership republished in The Times of Israel.

(Cross-posted from My Machberet)

Monday Markets for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Monday brings the weekly batch of no-fee competitions/contests, paying submission calls, and jobs for those of us who write (especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction).

  • From placesforwriters.com: “Entertainment and pop culture magazine A Bard’s Tales (Canada) is looking for contributing writers. Payment: $50 for features, $50 for reviews, and $25 for opinion pieces. All pieces must be first pitched (lead to the story, possible sources, rough length, etc) and approved by one of the ABT editors. Deadline: Open.”
  • Attention, writers in Washington state. “Fellowships award $7,500 to practicing professional artists of exceptional talent and demonstrated ability. The Fellowship is a merit-based, not a project-based award. Recipients present a Meet the Artist Event to a community in Washington State that has little or no access to the artist and their work. In 2014, in addition to 14 Fellowship recipients, one artist each in the Literary and Music disciplines will receive a one-month residency at the Millay Colony in New York and a $1,000 stipend.” Apply by January 13, 2014. No application fee.
  • Coming soon (very soon!): the January 2014 issue of The Practicing Writer. If you’re not yet a subscriber, it’s certainly not too late to have this free resource delivered directly to your e-mailbox.
  • The National Trust for Historic Preservation (Washington) is advertising for a Public Affairs Manager (Blogger Outreach). The organization is also inviting applications for a paying editorial internship position.
  • Also in Washington: “The American Poetry Museum is looking for thoughtful, creative, and reliable individuals to lead poetry workshops through our youth education program….This position is part-time and hourly. Educators are paid $25/hr and workshops are an hour long; educators typically between cover 2-8 workshops a week. Hours are flexible; workshops occur both during the school day and after school Monday-Friday.”
  • “Lambda Legal seeks a full-time Associate Editor in its Education and Public Affairs Department to support the Content and Editorial Director in producing print and digital publications in both English and Spanish.” This job is in New York.
  • Autry National Center of the American West (Los Angeles) is looking for a Communications Manager.
  • Johnson State College (Vt.) seeks an Assistant Professor in Writing & Literature. “He or she should be a writer of fiction with significant publications and experience in digital magazine editing and publication(s).”