Mrs. Dalloway Then and Now
This appeared in the Patch: When I was in college, I took a course taught by an erudite British poet and critic, Jon Stallworthy, who came to class in nubby wool sweaters, and assigned us to write an...
View ArticleWhen Do You Write: Guest Post at Anjali Enjeti’s Website
Nowadays I write when the saws aren’t whining downstairs or one of my boys isn’t tumbling into my study, complaining about his odious brother. Seriously, right now—living through a kitchen renovation...
View ArticleWe’re Ready for Immigration Reform: A Novelist’s Perspective
A new Op-Ed in the Huffington Post: With the bipartisan proposal on immigration just announced, and President Obama’s speech on reform delivered recently, we’re all braced for the polarizing winds of...
View ArticleLisa Jalowetz Aronson: The Door Opens
I first met my future mother-in-law in 1996, when my boyfriend at the time, Marc Aronson, brought me to Westchester, where he was giving a talk on Edith Wharton to his mother’s book reading group,...
View ArticleKara Walker & The Real Sugar Links
On Kara Walker’s A Subtlety is a marvelous, yet maddening installation at the old Domino Sugar Factory. Here’s why: When I stepped inside the vast Domino Sugar Factory for the opening of Kara Walker’s...
View ArticleNormality Elusive In Fraught Times–Muslim Teenagers after Orlando
An article in the NY Times today about how the Orlando killings are again snatching away a sense of normality for Muslim teens during Ramadan, a time that should be reflective and celebratory. Last...
View ArticleOn Re-reading Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son”
April 13th, 2017: Last night I taught Baldwin (which the students loved) and the last lines kept resonating as I drove home: “It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas...
View ArticleDACA, Dreamers
April 26, 2017 Two items caught my attention today: an undocumented Rutgers student, a Dreamer, asked by ICE to interview at their office and report about how much young undocumented immigrants...
View ArticleHenri Cartier-Bresson & India
2017 marks the 70th anniversary of the Magnum Photo Agency, founded by photography greats Robert Capa, Henri Cartier Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger, William Vandervirt, and others right after...
View Article9/12: The World We Have Woken To
9/11 is our day of marking, our day of mourning. At dinner last night, our older son told us about his school’s annual assembly, how affected he was by the grim sequence of images—the smothering dust,...
View ArticleWe are Puerto Rico
December, 2017–San Juan, Puerto Rico Corny as it sounds, as we’re touching down in Puerto Rico, there’s a rainbow arching over the land mass. I can also see the vegetation has begun to spring back,...
View ArticleA Bucket, A Light, A Drop of Help — Puerto Rico Part 2
While it has been gratifying to have friends shower us for praise about our vacation-volunteering in Puerto Rico, it is also embarrassing. What we are doing is a mere drop in an ocean of need, nothing...
View ArticleMaplewood Literary Award 2018
This was the brief talk I gave before my interview with Sarah Lester at the Maplewood Literary Award event on March 24th, 2018. It’s adapted from an earlier blog on writing in 9/12. I should like to...
View ArticleFreedom From Fear
Seventy-two hours that included pipe bombs, an assassination of two African Americans, and a synagogue massacre. What country do we live in? Strangely enough, I find myself thinking about Norman...
View ArticleKara Walker & The Real Sugar Links
On Kara Walker’s A Subtlety is a marvelous, yet maddening installation at the old Domino Sugar Factory. Here’s why: When I stepped inside the vast Domino Sugar Factory for the opening of Kara Walker’s...
View ArticleNormality Elusive In Fraught Times–Muslim Teenagers after Orlando
An article in the NY Times today about how the Orlando killings are again snatching away a sense of normality for Muslim teens during Ramadan, a time that should be reflective and celebratory. Last...
View ArticleOn Re-reading Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son”
April 13th, 2017: Last night I taught Baldwin (which the students loved) and the last lines kept resonating as I drove home: “It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas...
View ArticleDACA, Dreamers
April 26, 2017 Two items caught my attention today: an undocumented Rutgers student, a Dreamer, asked by ICE to interview at their office and report about how much young undocumented immigrants...
View ArticleHenri Cartier-Bresson & India
2017 marks the 70th anniversary of the Magnum Photo Agency, founded by photography greats Robert Capa, Henri Cartier Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger, William Vandervirt, and others right after...
View Article9/12: The World We Have Woken To
9/11 is our day of marking, our day of mourning. At dinner last night, our older son told us about his school’s annual assembly, how affected he was by the grim sequence of images—the smothering dust,...
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