Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
“I wish I’d given myself the comfort of knowing how long (the pandemic) was going to be. Here’s you in a year, relax. Stop refreshing The New York Times” (musician Phoebe Bridgers). Many years ago, when my house had no heat during a six-month remodeling project that dragged on for two years, I subconsciously drove my car faster on the instinct that a revved-up engine would get me warmer too. All I got was a speeding ticket. At the beginning of the pandemic, I felt that same urge to hurry up, as if my working faster would hasten the end of the lockdown. Eventually I accepted that the end was nowhere in sight. Now, as I reenter the world, I’m content to advance at a snail’s pace. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
Pace yourself when the road ahead is of undetermined lengthWhy writers write: “A word is never the destination, merely a signpost in its general direction, and that destination owes quite as much to the reader as to the writer.” – John Fowles
My essay “Where Do Elders Belong: Shuffling in the Old Folks Home or Marching in the Street?” is now online in the May 2021 issue of Vine Leaves Press SPILL IT! The essay protests demeaning myths about aging and issues a call to social action by older people. Use the buttons at the bottom of the essay to share and voice your opinion. Follow the links to my other articles and check out the voices of other authors. Sign up to receive SPILL IT! every month. It’s free. Read about my other recent publications in NEWS.
Have your sayWhy writers write: “Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled.” – Henry David Thoreau
“I decided I was going to learn to draw (during the pandemic). I really sucked at it. It was hard on my self-esteem. I had to let the drawing go” (novelist Tayari Jones). Why, in times of stress, do creative people pile more on ourselves by undertaking new challenges? I admire Jones, who was able to drop the drawing. Many, myself included, find it hard to let go. What started as an adventure becomes self-inflicted punishment. Instead of either bidding adieu or simply finding pleasure in something regardless of our ability, we build a wall and persist in slamming our heads against it. Occasionally we break through, so we risk our self-esteem again. And again. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
Not letting go: Creativity or craziness?Why writers write: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach
“My bad ideas (during the pandemic) were usually bad because they were not funny because I was depressed” (actor and writer Aidy Bryant). While I’m not primarily a humor writer, I occasionally write “funny” or quirky pieces. I don’t think I’ve written any during the pandemic. I can joke about COVID-19 to cheer someone up, or dash off a throw-away line in a letter or conversation, but sustained humor seems neither appropriate nor possible. Perhaps a sign that the pandemic is receding will be when laughter rebounds. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
The return of laughter signals healingWhy writers write: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” – Thomas Mann
My Amazon and Goodreads review of My Heart: A Novel by Semezdin Mehmedinovic (Rating 5) – Life’s Irregular Beat and Steady Flow. Semezdin Mehmedinovic’s autobiographical novel My Heart is literally and figuratively about the life-giving organ of its title. Divided into three sections, the book begins with Sem’s heart attack, ends with his wife Sanja’s stroke, and in the middle recounts a long road trip Sem takes with their adult son Harun, whose restless heart pumps with an energy that is dwindling in his aging parents. Threaded through the book is the intense love that beats in the author’s heart for this tight-knit family. My Heart is also about memory. In the first story, the author remembers little of his heart attack. Told the medication he must now take may cause further memory loss, Sem is obsessed with remembering the first place the family lived after emigrating from Bosnia. This prompts the trip from Maryland to Arizona with his son, a photographer who creates, rather than retrieves, memories. Harun’s time-lapse pictures reveal wonders the eye alone cannot see. Sem’s insight on this journey is that while we remember places, they retain no memory of us. Recall, or its lack, is most prominent in the novel’s third section. Sanja’s stroke has obliterated large swaths of her memory. Sem hopes that returning from the hospital to the familiarity of home will restore the missing images and events, but again place is not a repository for memory. Robbed of once-known words and ideas, Sanja, like their son, creates new, often entertaining ones. Finally, the novel is about place itself. An immigrant, Sem is forever an outsider in America. His identity cannot be rooted in a place. Fortunately, the core of his being is the family he carries in his heart. A model for a person who ages well, My Heart is gentle and reflective, but not passive. As a fiber artist and writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admired Mehmedinovic’s ability to interweave multiple themes in a subtle tapestry that will touch the heart of readers who contemplate the irregular beat and steady flow of their own lives.
An autobiographical novel about the heart, memory, and placeWhy writers read: “Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us how to live and die.” – Anne Lamott
“If I were to write (during the pandemic) like I normally do, which is glorified complaining, it would be the same as every other person. I don’t know what new experience I can bring to it” (musician Phoebe Bridgers). Since my writing is timeless, rather than timely, and I don’t kvetch, I continue to write as always. For contemporary commentators, the best COVID-19 writing may have to wait until the pandemic has passed. It’s hard to see clearly when one is mired in misery. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
Rare is the complainer who stands out from the crowdWhy writers write: “Writing a novel is taking life as it exists to make an object that might contain this life inside it, something that never was and will not be again.” – Eudora Welty
“There is a myth about the redistribution of time during the pandemic, that we have fewer interruptions. I’ve experienced the opposite” (artist Anicka Yi). Neither is true for me. I attend the same number of in-person meetings and coffee dates, only now they happen on Zoom. While it’s true that I go to the market less often and buy things online rather than in-store, I was never much of a shopper to begin with. What has changed is how I feel about uninterrupted time spent alone. As a writer, I’ve always treasured it. I still do, but after a year of solitary routines, I’d (sort of) welcome more in-person social “disruptions.” Read more of my thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
After a long lockdown in solitude, a few social interruptions may be welcomeWhy writers write: “Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story.” – Neil Gaiman
“I switched to watching murder documentaries [during the pandemic]. When the world is grim like that, you look for something that is even worse” (actor and writer Sharon Horgan). Unlike Horgan, knowing that others are suffering doesn’t make me feel better. I just feel bad for them too. So, my (minimal) viewing habits and wide-ranging reading choices haven’t changed. Nor has my writing. The difference is that my level of interest and emotion has intensified. Read more of my thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
Knowing someone has it worse makes me feel bad for them, not better about meWhy writers write: “An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” – James Baldwin
My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Angle of Flickering Light (Rating 5) – Addicted to the Addicted. Gina Troisi’s honest and unsparing memoir, The Angle of Flickering Light, is a slant approach to addiction. Less about her own substance abuse problems, this brave journey instead looks at why she was attracted to men whose love affair with drugs exceeded their love for her. Her self-worth damaged by an abusive father and stepmother, Troisi compensated by rescuing others. Inevitably her ministrations failed to heal either them or herself. Addiction, be it to heroin or heroism, is an escape route that eventually hits a roadblock. Troisi’s feat is that she finally stops trying to circumnavigate her inner barrier and uses pointed writing to chip her way through it. Flickering light alternately casts shadows and illuminates. Troisi chooses brightness over darkness. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I applaud Troisi’s literary gifts as she clears a path for herself while paving a connection with readers.
Choosing between shadow and illuminationWhy writers read: “The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.” – Gustave Flaubert
