An essay on creative process by Rachel E. Diken The Open Road had long been a solace to me, until a highway crash many years ago where faulty brakes caused a high-speed tumbling wreck. I was moving from the Northeast to New Orleans, so the vehicle was packed with everything I owned: primarily, a dozen backpacks full of the poems, essays, and notebooks documenting my travels. As I was loaded into the ambulance, I saw my pages of writing floating through the air, carried away by the wind over the highway. The experience marked a … Continue reading When Called, Say Yes→
Poets and writers of fiction and nonfiction write with a sense of specific place in all languages. Once place is introduced in the piece, emotions are evoked, and a lot of things can happen in that place. In poetry, place provides an outer structure and a vehicle to contain and carry a poem into memory, reflection and ideas. Description of place not only offers knowledge of a geographical space, it allows readers into the poet’s intimate experience. Various theories exist as to why writers use place, including that the poet may seek to write about … Continue reading Poetry of Place by Roselyn Elliott→
Streetlight art editor, Elizabeth Meade Howard, had her book Aging Famously: Follow Those You Admire to Living Long and Well published by Jefferson Park Press on September 10thth. Jane Barnes, author of Falling in Love with Joseph Smith, talks to Howard about her recent publication. Barnes: Why did you write Aging Famously? Howard: It was initially a mourning project, sparked by my father’s death. He lived to 90 and had long been my mentor and role model. He had a young spirit to the end. I felt suddenly elevated to family elder and wanted guidance … Continue reading Streetlight Art Editor Elizabeth Howard Publishes New Book→
I am but a mouthful of sweet air – W.B. Yeats I take special pleasure in sitting outdoors. There’s displeasure, too, in the form of bugs and mercurial weather that I can’t control, but mostly I take pleasure. The smells, the sounds, the constant dramas played out in the flight of birds, bees, and butterflies, the feel of the grass on my bare feet and the breeze on my skin—they all combine to make life outdoors feel richer and more immediate. Outdoors, food tastes better. Maybe it’s the relaxed atmosphere around the picnic table or … Continue reading Sitting Out by David Roach→
I wander through urban places, mostly near my home in Brooklyn, New York, rolling a Whole Foods cart jammed with a collapsible chair, a bristol pad, pencils, pastels, an easel and canvases. I make images of figurative public statuary, and occasionally their absences. These pictorial essays track the fate of public monuments and explore the inconstancy of public and private memory, particularly when the present, as now, is deeply unhappy or ambivalent with the legacy of its deeded past. This distress can lead to the toppling of public statuary which customarily happens in … Continue reading Teetering: Drawings by Howard Skrill→
At 7:40am, the streets of downtown Charlottesville are eerily quiet. If not for the barricades, it would be hard to believe these streets will soon teem with people: busloads of Nazis come for the Unite the Right rally, and counter-protesters, like us. Some people told us to stay away this morning. Terry Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia, where I teach in the German Department, urged us not to risk getting caught in the violence. But as a Jewish Germanist, I know too well what happens when you don’t stand up to Nazis. Besides, … Continue reading What I Saw in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 by Cora Schenberg→
My second novel, Best Intentions, is a medical thriller that falls solidly between Write-What-You-Know, a form of untaxing research I heartily recommend, and Write-What-You-Worry-About, a selfless act of spreading alarm. (You’re welcome.) Shining a light on important issues while plucking details floating around my house to flesh them out was pretty much my dream project. As a doctor’s wife and a mother of a child with a serious illness, I’ve had an interesting vantage point from which to study our medical system. While I don’t claim to be an expert on the subjects I touch … Continue reading Best Intentions by Erika Raskin→
Once a decade, the European cities of Venice, Kassel, and Munster form a trifecta for the contemporary art world. There’s the every-two-year Biennale in that glorious jewel on the Adriatic. And a mammoth show every five years organized by an internationally-known curator that spreads throughout the mid-sized German city of Kassel. And every ten years, Munster—with its town center entirely rebuilt to its historic appearance after World War II—hosts an exhibition of new outdoor sculptures and installations. This was one of those years when all three coincided. Over the course of two weeks, I saw … Continue reading Travelogue: Venice Biennale by John B. Ravenal→
Horror is my favorite movie style by far. There are endless sub-genres, including supernatural, inbred/cannibalistic families on the prowl, suspense/thriller, cult related brainwashing activities, etc., etc. (they breed like mutants—fact-check this on Netflix). Unlike some people I know who enjoy only one or two of these specific categories—you dilettantes know who you are—I, a true aficionada, love all of them. Hunkering down for a scary film in the theater is especially enjoyable, with the heightened effects of sound, lighting and communal terror, but I am perfectly happy watching with my dog on the couch. But … Continue reading The Truth is Scarier than Fiction→
My favorite flower is an iris, inspired by Van Gogh’s painting, Irises. It’s a painting of blue irises with one white iris symbolizing his loneliness. I feel loneliest in a group so I strongly relate to this painting. I have been photographing irises longer than anything else. I started taking photos of flowers, especially irises, roses and tulips, in the spring and summer months of the late ’90s and early 2000s in Providence, Rhode Island, where I live. I have struggled with manic depression for three decades. The mania … Continue reading Kate Salvi’s Flower Power→
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