“I passed through Bologna once on the way to…” That’s how my favorite Italian city is usually featured in travel narratives. Tourists know its train station, a surprisingly modest building considering how many travelers are propelled through it and on to the rest of Europe. It is a squat two-story rectangle with an unfussy columned entrance. Its design is bereft of allusions to the excitement of rail travel. The architect might have had a post office in mind. Italian train stations always combine hurry and lassitude; waiting punctuated by last-minute alterations in the track assignments. … Continue reading Thinking About the Bologna Train Station by Stefanie Newman→
I recently interviewed my friend, Sue Eisenfeld, about her creative nonfiction writing, and it turns out she’s taught a range of courses and workshops at Johns Hopkins University in creative nonfiction. She’s taught travel writing, nature writing, and recently a course called The Literature of Science Writing that examines what makes science writing literary and not simply technical writing. Eisenfeld has also written as a freelance writer for twenty years, but far and above her essays and articles stands her first book, Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal, published by the University of Nebraska … Continue reading Sue Eisenfeld: An Author’s Journey to Publish Creative Nonfiction→
Dimithry Victor, a self-taught 16-year-old artist from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, admits to having “many aspirations and goals, the most important ones to make people think and change the world through art.” No small ambition. “I know art can be used to express emotion, and get people to pay attention to a certain topic or even make them feel emotions. That is what I plan to do with my art.” Dimithry’s interest in art came by way of comics and cartoons. “When I was a kid I used to copy and learn from comic book … Continue reading Angel Wings & Other Aspirations: The Art of Dimithry Victor→
I’ve kept an idea journal for as long as I can remember. Whenever a word, sentence or story idea strikes my fancy, I jot it down and date the entry. One day, I thumbed through the pages, noticing dates on entries. A pattern emerged. Whenever I felt at peace with my life, I saw numerous entries, many of which inspired stories and essays. However, the number of entries decreased to almost none when I was experiencing turmoil. One year stood out. I was stuck in a conflict with a person who had no interest in … Continue reading The Effect of Forgiveness on Creativity by Deborah M. Prum→
Just like the adage about loving yourself before being able to love another person, I’ve come to understand that in order to write with depth, you first have to learn to write about yourself. I grew up in a close-knit Philadelphia neighborhood of row homes and old-world tailors, Holocaust survivors, first and second generation East European Jews. Although the streets were rich with stories, I had internalized society’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed obsession and was diverted from appreciating them. (Ironically, I’d read Issac Babel’s accounts of his Jewish Odessa neighborhood with passion, lamenting why I’d been born … Continue reading First Steps by Harriet Levin Millan→
Michael fled his village in South Sudan at the age of five. He trekked a thousand miles through war zones to arrive at a series of refugee camps where he lived for a decade. As a child at Kukuma Refugee Camp, Michael played soccer using a blown up latex glove fished from a trash bin outside the hospital tent. He learned to play chess and checkers under the punishing sun from old-timers who sat bereft of their children and their land. One of the most life-negating situations a person can face is to live without … Continue reading A Place To Flee by Harriet Levin Millan→
Sitting on my desk right now, asking for attention more ardently than any of the other chores I ought to be doing—such as my own writing, or, for example, this blog—are these two beautiful books of poetry. They have some things in common. Both writers are women, both write an eloquent lyric line, and both are past editors of this very magazine. Susan R. Williamson, while she still lived in Charlottesville, was the editor in chief of Streetlight for two years when it was still a print magazine. Roselyn Elliott was the co-editor for poetry … Continue reading Two Beautiful Books You Should See→
As the new poetry editor of Streetlight, I find myself caught between the delights and demands of poetry and the nightmare of current events happening here in our nation and globally. I want to attempt to answer a question which, ironically, I haven’t actually heard being asked: of what value is poetry in this near-apocalyptic world we’re living in, a world where, at least in this country, we, absurdly, can’t even agree to keep guns out of the hands of known terrorists? In many places in Europe and Asia poetry is not only an art … Continue reading Poetry of Witness and Healing→
A conversation with writer director Eleanor Gaver I met Eleanor Gaver in a writing workshop in L.A. and we kept in touch after she and her husband and daughter moved to NYC. I knew she had recently finished a film and knowing how hard it is to get financing I asked her how Here One Minute was able to go from script to screen. Eleanor: I got so tired of writing scripts and waiting years to get the money to make the film; I was so tired of hearing, ‘No.’ I decided to make a … Continue reading “A Great Time For Young Filmmakers” Eleanor Gaver, writer director→
Some writers spend years honing their craft until their work unfolds with the effortless grace of an Olympic figure skater. It’s the kind of ease and proficiency that looks impossible—belying countless hours of rehearsal—and can make an audience gasp. Diane Whitbeck is such a writer. A prolific freelance writer and published author, she has ghostwritten fourteen books in just two and a half years and has also authored six books under her own name. I interviewed Whitbeck about her writing career, and though I had only a short list of questions, she offered me a … Continue reading Amazing But True! Confessions from a Ghost (Writer): Diane Whitbeck→
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