June 2021 – Ann S. Epstein Writer

Same Script, Different Productions

Two sets of directors, casts, and crews, working from identical scripts, create different productions. Two authors, given the same set of words or writing prompts, create different stories. What distinguishes them? Setting (stage set or story location); lighting (illumination and shadow on the stage or on paper); costume and makeup (how actors or characters appear); props (stage items, story details), voice (POV, how actors or character speak); body and facial language (posture, gestures, movements, and expressions acted or described); and chemistry (between actors or characters). Connections change too. In live theater, the connection between actors and audience alters the production from one performance to the next. Likewise, how readers connect with what’s on the page gives rise to different books. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.

Directors, cast, and crew — like authors — interpret the same script differently, creating alternate experiences for audiences and readers

Why writers write: “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” – Sylvia Plath

What I’m Reading: Truth Like Oil by Connie Biewald

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Truth Like Oil by Connie Biewald (Rating 5) – Thoughtful, Deep, Honest. Connie Biewald proves in her thoughtful, deep, and honest novel Truth Like Oil, the Haitian proverb that “Truth, like oil in water, rises to the surface.” We meet Nadine Antoine, a Haitian immigrant who is the single mother of two teenage sons, and the Boston-area friends who replace the family she left behind. Nadine’s big secret is that her sons have different fathers, neither of whom the boys have met. She has devoted herself to raising them alone, on her small salary as an aide in a nursing facility, where she cares for a once-feisty white woman felled by a stroke. Nadine frets about her capabilities as a mother, her children’s well-being, romantic overtures from her patient’s son who was also the boys’ high school coach and mentor, memories of an uncle’s abuse, and loneliness. Her sons navigate their own push-pull worlds. For the older son, this means deciding whether he can accept a white girlfriend; for the younger son, resolving a debate between aligning himself with his drug-dealing friends or choosing the respectable future his mother envisions. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Biewald’s deft interweaving of opposing forces: old and young, Haitian and American, mainstream and marginal. Biewald strings together three phrases — I love you. I’m sorry. Thank you. — and astutely observes that they say it all. I loved this book, was sorry to reach the end, and thank Biewald for a compelling story.

A wise Haitian proverb inspires honest fiction

Why writers read: “Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person.” – Nora Ephron

The Marriage of Knowledge and Wonder

“Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin” (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism). Heschel define wonder as “radical amazement.” Amazement leads us to ask “How can this be?” which in turn spurs us to seek knowledge, an explanation. This seeking is the practice of science. Contrary to the belief that science and religion are incompatible, however, is the observation that scientific discoveries do not end our sense of wonder, but instead increase our radical amazement that such phenomena exist. The best scientific writing conveys and inspires this sense of wonder. I write fiction, which is spurred by our sense of wonder about human nature. Fiction writers turn to imagination, not science, for explanations, but the motivation is the same. And whatever the answer — a story’s end — radical amazement remains. Nothing is fully explained, which is why the tales I like best, whether I’m writing or reading, are those with open endings. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, leading 20th century theologian and philosopher

Why writers write: “Writing is the answer to everything. It’s the streaming reason for living … to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.” – Enid Bagnold

What I’m Reading: Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig (Rating 4) – Believability and Surprise. I have always been fascinated by LBJ. I was a college freshman when he became president following JFK’s assassination. LBJ’s Great Society, notably the Head Start program, was the impetus for my lifelong career in early childhood education. Like other youth opposed to the war in Vietnam, I turned against LBJ. Years passed before I was able to credit his compassionate and far-sighted social and economic agenda. Julia Sweig’s biography, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, enriched my perspective. For example, like others, I assumed LBJ’s decision not to run for a second term in 1968 was forced by the backlash against his foreign policy, unaware that (spoiler alert) he and Lady Bird first discussed his exit back in 1964. Although he chose to run then, bowing out in 1968 had been in their plans for years. Likewise, I discovered that Lady Bird’s campaign for “beautification” (a term she despised) was inextricably linked to the Great Society’s broader recognition of the physical, emotional, intellectual, and creative toll of living in a blighted environment — her true concern. Readers of this detailed account will also learn about Lady Bird’s vital role managing her husband’s black moods and speaking on behalf of women’s empowerment, and feel the heartbreak of seeing their hard-won domestic legacy dismissed. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I value the ability to combine believability with surprise in a narrative. Sweig’s behind-the-scenes look at Lady Bird provides both. Her absorbing history remains relevant in the ongoing struggle to balance domestic needs and foreign policy.

Why writers read: “When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.” – Erasmus

Pandemic Thoughts: Harmony and Unity Before Reentry

“Before things return to normal (after the pandemic), I just want to live each day more harmoniously” (classical singer Julia Bullock). After a prolonged lockdown, the return to normal produces a disorienting mix of anticipation and anxiety. If singers hope to capture and carry forward a state of vocal harmony, perhaps the verbal equivalent for writers is the resonant unity of our words. More thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.