Category Archives: Writing & Reading

“Welcome to Girl Land, my good little girls!”—Thank you Marlo Thomas and Friends

Caitlin Flanagan has a new book out.  When a writer of a certain standing (read: excellent agent and/or energy-filled editor and publicist) is about to publish (again or for the first time), her name begins to pop up, there and … Continue reading

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Lots of latkes…Oh, Christmas tree…oh, Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah

Happy holidays, everyone!  I’ve been consumed again by domesticity over the written word the past few weeks.  (Is this a bi-annual event?)  But amidst the Thanksgiving feast and Hanukkah festivities and upcoming Christmas celebrations, I’ve been thinking a lot about … Continue reading

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Witness—the Holocaust, suicide, and memory (coincidence redux)

A few weeks ago, someone recommended the book Spectral Evidence to me, which, among other things, includes World War II photos from the Łódź Ghetto, the Nazis’ Jewish quarter in this major Polish city.  I wrote the book title down … Continue reading

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Tell me a story—about war

“While you were out last night, I saw a piece of paper, and it was very sad.  And then it blew away,” my three-year-old reported the week before last.  At first, I was not quite alarmed but certainly taken aback—how … Continue reading

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When you open a door—night visions with Kafka or Beckett

My older son started a new school in May.  This was a difficult decision, changing schools so late in the year, but one we made quite deliberately in navigating the New York City school system and the emerging needs of … Continue reading

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The memory keepers: Remembering September 11th—and World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10th

My thoughts this weekend, along with much of America and many around the world, are on 9/11, remembering, mourning, thinking about what happened ten years ago and what has happened since.  Two wars, much grieving, many shifts, small and large, … Continue reading

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My Father’s Guns (part 4) – Final Installment

©2007, originally published in Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Vol. 6, “My Father’s Guns,” by Kara Frye My Father’s Guns IV. Travel back.  The early eighties: I might have been ten or eleven, and Dad had recently been … Continue reading

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Antidepressants—and Sex & Motherhood—in the News

During the notorious summer lull in “serious” books, I have found a number of interesting articles to feed my brain in recent weeks on topics as varied as depression, divorce, subjectivity, sex, and motherhood.  These essays—and their subjects—overlap and bump … Continue reading

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Mysteries of childhood—avid reader, cannot read

Here I am, back on blog, a worried mother twisting her memory to remember what happened when in her young son’s life.  Where does the trail begin, if I want to understand what he is struggling with now?  Words are … Continue reading

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My Father’s Guns (part 3)

©2007, originally published in Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Vol. 6, “My Father’s Guns,” by Kara Frye My Father’s Guns III. Stewart’s Gun Shop in Bloomington is on South Walnut, a side street perpendicular to central downtown.  I’d … Continue reading

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