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Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

by Erika Dreifus on
15

41CoSsxg1qL._SX310_BO1,204,203,200_How’s the first official work week of 2016 treating you, my fellow practicing writers?

So far, so good for me.

For Starters

Yes, I know we’re only five days in, but so far, I’ve stuck to my new year’s intention (a word I prefer to “resolution”) to draft one new poem every day. (Haiku counts.) I’m getting up a tad earlier to try to get these poems done before I dig into the rest of the day.

I admit that last year commenced with a similar intention—which petered out around April/May. But while it lasted, it was great—I wrote A LOT of poems, a few of which, after revision, have been published or accepted for publication in 2016. (Example: “Beautiful Enough.”)

Any success here I credit to prompts. Seriously: I could not even contemplate writing a poem a day if I didn’t have all kinds of prompts bookmarked or otherwise filed away. This week, I’ve also been consulting The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice, by Kelli Russell Agodon and Martha Silano. I bought a copy for my Kindle some weeks (months?) ago, when there was a Kindle special. But I saved the book for use in 2016. (more…)

Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Class Notes

DraftingIt’s hard to believe that this semester’s “Jewish Sources, Literary Narrative” writing workshop is almost over. By the time I write next week’s update, instructor Amy Gottlieb will have convened our celebratory final session. (There will be food! There will be wine! There will be shared work—including, if I can manage it, one yet-to-be-completed draft of a new poem by yours truly, inspired by the Book of Psalms.)

As I’ve mentioned before, this was the second iteration of the course for me. It is such a wonderful class, and I hope that Amy will offer it yet again.

I’m revising some of the work I’ve written in response to the texts and prompts that Amy has shared with us these past couple of months. And some of it—yes!—I’ve already begun sending out.

My public thanks to Amy and my classmates for a great experience. (more…)

Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Amy K.A Rainy Evening’s Reading

Not even heavy rain kept the crowd from filling the event space at the Barnes & Noble on Manhattan’s Upper West Side last Thursday evening. Everyone had come for Amy Koppelman‘s reading from her latest novel, Hesitation Wounds.

Here’s Amy listening to the very first question from the audience–(her husband happened to be the one who posed the question). Also present for the occasion: one of Amy’s early writing teachers, Michael Cunningham, who by her account, sounds as though he is the epitome of a generous writing mentor.

And it definitely looks as though there’s more than one writer in the family: Amy posted a link yesterday to this lovely essay by her teenaged daughter. Go take a read. Especially if you ever felt friendless/alone as an adolescent. (Spoiler alert: It’s really a happy essay! And poetry plays a part!) (more…)

Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

by Erika Dreifus on
3

I’ve got some kind of bug this week–I had to leave my Monday class a little early and haven’t quite managed to get everything accomplished that I’ve been hoping to. (And if you’re reading this on Wednesday morning, I may just be undergoing a root canal for the first time as you do so! Fun times!)

But here are a couple of tidbits from the week just past. (more…)