L.L. Barkat's Blog
March 2, 2020
Great Video
Great video introduction to The Yellow Wall-Paper: a graphic novel. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2tt_...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2tt_...
February 27, 2020
Intriguing Lit Analysis of The Yellow Wall-Paper
"The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a horror story, a feminist text, a study of the relationship between author and character and writing itself—in a tale where the main character is a writer, creating the story the reader is reading, and where Gilman herself created the work based on her own experiences. It is deceptively simple in its execution, but it is complex for all that.
To begin, it may be alluring to imagine that the wall-paper, so hideous in its power, can be clearly delineated: that it is always in opposition to the narrator, always aligned with her antagonist, that there is an easy way to place blame, but the story purposefully defies this imagining."
read the rest at...
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2020...
To begin, it may be alluring to imagine that the wall-paper, so hideous in its power, can be clearly delineated: that it is always in opposition to the narrator, always aligned with her antagonist, that there is an easy way to place blame, but the story purposefully defies this imagining."
read the rest at...
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2020...
February 7, 2020
Love This New Graphic Novel
Remember the girl in Rumors of Water? The one who thought Bishop's Weed was her nemesis?
I still love her, so much. She's 22, and she just put her hand to a classic tale, to bring it to readers in a fresh way. Check out her imaginative take on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper!
https://amzn.to/2H5y4qg
I still love her, so much. She's 22, and she just put her hand to a classic tale, to bring it to readers in a fresh way. Check out her imaginative take on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper!
https://amzn.to/2H5y4qg
June 11, 2018
Join Me at Shelf Awareness
What a delight to get to answer questions about well-loved books, over at an interview with Shelf Awareness.
Join me, and maybe answer a few of the questions, too!
Join me, and maybe answer a few of the questions, too!
June 9, 2018
The Rumors Are True
In Rumors of Water, I admit to taking a rather... creative approach to educating my girls. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the girls were encouraged to cultivate their own creativity, through so many beautiful experiences with nature and life—and the chance to choose their own ways and explore media of multiple kinds (regardless of what the dining room eventually looked like at supper time—"Japanese" tents and all!).
There were days I doubted. What would come of it?
Many things, to be sure. But video editing might be the most surprising of their ultimate pursuits. It's not simple. It takes tons of time. It requires vision and bold experimentation. Video editing is their new "purple moth with teeth," if you will.
My youngest (she's the one you might remember I carried to the beach, with her head near my heart, when she had debilitating Lyme disease) has now given her art in conversation with mine. I'm carrying it near my heart...
There were days I doubted. What would come of it?
Many things, to be sure. But video editing might be the most surprising of their ultimate pursuits. It's not simple. It takes tons of time. It requires vision and bold experimentation. Video editing is their new "purple moth with teeth," if you will.
My youngest (she's the one you might remember I carried to the beach, with her head near my heart, when she had debilitating Lyme disease) has now given her art in conversation with mine. I'm carrying it near my heart...
A Magical Summer Reading List
The phenomenon of the summer slide is well established. It relates to a number of factors that aren’t always simple, though for families and communities with resources it’s a fairly straightforward matter of being aware and finding easy ways to keep kids reading. But regardless of resources, using fairy tales in summer is one great solution with younger kids.
Why Fairy Tales?
Classroom teachers are accustomed to providing students with units of study. Walk into a fall classroom and you might see a unit on harvest or community. Winter might feature tales and explorations of the Arctic or snow. Spring brings themes of birth, energy, or planting.
Then summer comes and students aren’t in school working through units. The reading log, a popular strategy, usually lacks a theme and can feel like one long summer test if a child isn’t motivated by progress indicators or contests.
Read the whole post at Edutopia
Why Fairy Tales?
Classroom teachers are accustomed to providing students with units of study. Walk into a fall classroom and you might see a unit on harvest or community. Winter might feature tales and explorations of the Arctic or snow. Spring brings themes of birth, energy, or planting.
Then summer comes and students aren’t in school working through units. The reading log, a popular strategy, usually lacks a theme and can feel like one long summer test if a child isn’t motivated by progress indicators or contests.
Read the whole post at Edutopia
September 21, 2013
It’s Time for (Many) Experienced Writers to Stop Blogging
Last spring, an author approached me via Twitter to get my advice about blogging. How could she make it work for her? Was it worth it? Should she move to WordPress, get a new design? What did I think?
I told her to forget about blogging. And one week later, after a Skype conversation about writing and platform-building, I hired her as an Editor for Every Day Poems, a publication of the top poetry site where I currently serve as Managing Editor. “How many people are visiting your blog per month? One hundred?” I had joked gently. “Work with us and serve a much larger audience. This will be more worth your time.”
Read the whole Stop Blogging article at Jane Friedman's
I told her to forget about blogging. And one week later, after a Skype conversation about writing and platform-building, I hired her as an Editor for Every Day Poems, a publication of the top poetry site where I currently serve as Managing Editor. “How many people are visiting your blog per month? One hundred?” I had joked gently. “Work with us and serve a much larger audience. This will be more worth your time.”
Read the whole Stop Blogging article at Jane Friedman's
September 13, 2013
Artist Date: Mary, Patrick, Mary
I know where I’m going after I drop my girl to her volunteer job, so I pop Lady Gaga out of the player and flick in Alison Krauss and Union Station, Lonely Runs Both Ways.
I’m trying to listen to song lyrics, maybe memorize a few to bring back from my Artist Date, but my girl is chattering about how Kelly answered her question on selling prints. “How much do you think mine are worth?” she’s asking. I turn Alison down so I can discuss the value of a budding photographer’s work.
At the Montessori, I drop my girl, as always, and watch her long orange wool coat as she meanders up the stone steps to the double green doors. She knocks. They open. A curved hand, Cristina’s, waves to me, and the doors close. I’m off.
“Gone tomorrow, here today, just in case you’ve got somethin’ to say,” Alison is singing twang-sweetness between fiddles.
I cross the highway, yield slightly at the sign, point my car south on 134, then take a sharp right into St. Augustine’s. “Who owns death?” I think. Then I pass a white sign with brown letters “friends and family only"...
***
continue reading at Tweetspeak Poetry
I’m trying to listen to song lyrics, maybe memorize a few to bring back from my Artist Date, but my girl is chattering about how Kelly answered her question on selling prints. “How much do you think mine are worth?” she’s asking. I turn Alison down so I can discuss the value of a budding photographer’s work.
At the Montessori, I drop my girl, as always, and watch her long orange wool coat as she meanders up the stone steps to the double green doors. She knocks. They open. A curved hand, Cristina’s, waves to me, and the doors close. I’m off.
“Gone tomorrow, here today, just in case you’ve got somethin’ to say,” Alison is singing twang-sweetness between fiddles.
I cross the highway, yield slightly at the sign, point my car south on 134, then take a sharp right into St. Augustine’s. “Who owns death?” I think. Then I pass a white sign with brown letters “friends and family only"...
***
continue reading at Tweetspeak Poetry
September 9, 2013
Cape Cod Stories: Placing with Thoreau
There is something ironically bold and unoriginal about placing yourself where other writers have gone before. Placing literally. Placing figuratively.
This year I am placing myself on Cape Cod.
It happened first by an almost casual decision. Where would I go this summer, to build our regional library of literary tours? It has become important to me to not simply “tour” literary history on the cloud of the internet, on an e-reader, or a random pick from the library, but rather to really place myself (and, therefore Tweetspeak) in actual settings—to meet people, touch landscapes, breathe different qualities of air (if you don’t believe me, try it sometime; taste the air; it differs wherever you go).
The Cape will be salt. And I love salt maybe more than the average person who simply takes it up in a fast-food diet, unawares. I have even been told by a doctor—God bless her—to add salt liberally, drink it mixed with water if I like—to balance my surprisingly low blood pressure. You might not take me for a person who has low blood pressure, but the natural state of my body is so calm as to set the medical establishment to wondering about my viability for Olympic-level sports. Not that anyone has ever taken me for the type to win Olympic gold on the luge, but that is another story entirely, set in winter, and perhaps not important here...
***continue reading Cape Cod Stories: Placing with Thoreau***
This year I am placing myself on Cape Cod.
It happened first by an almost casual decision. Where would I go this summer, to build our regional library of literary tours? It has become important to me to not simply “tour” literary history on the cloud of the internet, on an e-reader, or a random pick from the library, but rather to really place myself (and, therefore Tweetspeak) in actual settings—to meet people, touch landscapes, breathe different qualities of air (if you don’t believe me, try it sometime; taste the air; it differs wherever you go).
The Cape will be salt. And I love salt maybe more than the average person who simply takes it up in a fast-food diet, unawares. I have even been told by a doctor—God bless her—to add salt liberally, drink it mixed with water if I like—to balance my surprisingly low blood pressure. You might not take me for a person who has low blood pressure, but the natural state of my body is so calm as to set the medical establishment to wondering about my viability for Olympic-level sports. Not that anyone has ever taken me for the type to win Olympic gold on the luge, but that is another story entirely, set in winter, and perhaps not important here...
***continue reading Cape Cod Stories: Placing with Thoreau***
Technology: Finding Our Way Back From the Flatness
The phone rings. I do not answer. It is an alert without nuance.
“I called three times and no one picked up,” someone admonishes.
“And three times I was not in the mood to talk,” I think, but do not say.
Another ignored caller tells me over tea, “You should get Caller ID.”
I should go to Alaska.
It is said that before the white man came and trading towns sprang up and offered cheap food in cans or boxes, a Native could travel across the icy landscape in search of food and not get lost. Disorienting to the untrained eye, the landscape would swallow a novice in no time, but to the eye that understood nuance of shape and shadow, the endless white posed no extra danger. A Native could find his way.
My inbox is Alaska. My Facebook alerts: Alaska, Alaska, Alaska...
***continue reading at The Curator***
http://www.curatormagazine.com/llbark...
“I called three times and no one picked up,” someone admonishes.
“And three times I was not in the mood to talk,” I think, but do not say.
Another ignored caller tells me over tea, “You should get Caller ID.”
I should go to Alaska.
It is said that before the white man came and trading towns sprang up and offered cheap food in cans or boxes, a Native could travel across the icy landscape in search of food and not get lost. Disorienting to the untrained eye, the landscape would swallow a novice in no time, but to the eye that understood nuance of shape and shadow, the endless white posed no extra danger. A Native could find his way.
My inbox is Alaska. My Facebook alerts: Alaska, Alaska, Alaska...
***continue reading at The Curator***
http://www.curatormagazine.com/llbark...
