Annette Gendler's Blog, page 14
February 8, 2018
Venice Revisited
This is my favorite photo of our trip to Venice last March: My brother’s hands caught taking a photo of the Grand Canale as we were standing on the Rialto Bridge. I’ve been meaning to share the best of my Venice shots all this time, and now that I’m a bit incapacitated with my hip problem, I finally plowed through the photos, edited them and picked the best. With such an extraordinary location as Venice, it is truly hard to weed out photos. Another impetus to finally get these photos sorted ...
January 31, 2018
31 Happy Things
Yours truly visiting the Ice Palace in St. Paul, MN Sunday, January 28, 2018
Inspired by a prompt in the current winter issue of Bella Grace, I kept a log for the past month, writing down one happy thing per day. I found it to be a good practice that, as easy as it sounds, still required a little bit of discipline to actually think about each evening. Here goes:
moonlight shadows on snow Christmas lights sparkling in the dark countryside chocolate chip cookies at the Albert (EMC2 Hotel, Chic...January 14, 2018
Minneapolis Literary Event Giveaway!
Calling all women writers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area! I’ll be on two panels, signing books and schmoozing at ModernWell’s Literary Kick-Off Event on January 28, 2017, 1:00 – 7:00 p.m., and I get to give away one ticket to attend (a $60 value)!
All you gotta do to be in the drawing is post a comment down below; just say why you want to attend and make sure I can email you should you win. Giveaway ends Saturday, January 20 at 7 p.m. CST. Of course you can enter even if you’re not in the...
January 5, 2018
On Going to the Store
I can’t believe I’m about to write a blog post advocating going to the store. I am not much of a shopper. I quickly get mental overload at any kind of mall, and I don’t particularly like schlepping from one store to the next. My problem, according to my daughter, is that I tend to look for something specific when I’m shopping, and thus I get easily frustrated because, most of the time, I can’t find what I’m envisioning. For me, shopping is not a pursuit in and of itself. Rather, I am always...
December 27, 2017
The Artist & Writer’s Workbook 2018
The Artist & Writer’s Workbook 2018 is here! Available as a free download if you sign up for my newsletter!
(All my subscribers have already received it.)
This year’s title image features the train tracks that run by Walden Pond, close to where Henry Thoreau’s cabin used to stand. I took it when I hiked around there with my daughter this November. Thoreau’s place of inspiration is a good place for us to start thinking about our writing life as we wrap up one year and plan for the next, don’t...
December 14, 2017
12/12/17 – Marking an Ordinary Day
Today I’m picking up the practice of creating a time capsule of one ordinary day, namely December 12, begun back on 12/12/12 when that was simply one cool date. I discovered I lapsed on this the last two years but I wanted to do it again this year as it’s just fun to capture one particular date every year and then be able to look back and see how or if my life has changed. I still love the morning light in our sun porch (as in the picture above) – my favorite spot in winter when for an hour...
12/12/17 – Marking on Ordinary Day
Today I’m picking up the practice of creating a time capsule of one ordinary day, namely December 12, begun back on 12/12/12 when that was simply one cool date. I discovered I lapsed on this the last two years but I wanted to do it again this year as it’s just fun to capture one particular date every year and then be able to look back and see how or if my life has changed. I still love the morning light in our sun porch (as in the picture above) – my favorite spot in winter when for an hour...
December 6, 2017
Dead People’s Stuff
With my brother-in-law’s recent death, the topic of dealing with all the things the deceased leave behind has become center stage again for my husband and me. Incidentally, just prior to that, I wrote an essay for Sasson Magazine about my love for some of the things I inherited from loved ones. This essay was the result of a discussion with Rivka Levy, who runs Sasson, and who thinks quite differently about this than I do. We decided to do a kind of “responsae” – writing about our views, res...
November 29, 2017
Book Companion Post: Writing About Family
My last visit with my brother-in-law Louis this summer
As a memoir writer and particularly as the author of a family memoir, I am often asked how my family reacted to being written about (see one example here). As a teacher of memoir writing, I have a definite take on this, and I summed that up in Writing About Others a while ago. And yet, when my book came out, it took my experience of writing about family to another level.
These past two weeks have been challenging for my family as my husba...
November 15, 2017
The Joy of Learning to Read
My daughter wearing one of the hats I knitted for her after I learned to read American knitting patterns.
I just began a new knitting project the other day–a hat for my brother–and it occurred to me that only a few years ago, I had not been able to interpret American knitting patterns. I learned to knit and crochet in Germany, where I grew up, and so German knitting and crocheting patterns are second nature to me. I understand their language, their abbreviations and signs, the sizing of knit...
