L. Annette Binder's Blog
September 27, 2024
Child of Earth and Starry Heaven
My new book, Child of Earth and Starry Heaven, is about my mother's struggle with dementia. It looks to mythology, science, history, poetry and fiction to try to find meaning and beauty as her cognition fails. So many times during her struggle I had to remind myself to look for moments of grace. In some ways I wrote the book to find those moments and to hold on to them.
The book comes out April 11, 2025 and is available now on NetGalley.
The book comes out April 11, 2025 and is available now on NetGalley.
October 5, 2021
Reading tonight
Sandell Morse and I will be reading from and discussing our books tonight at 6:30 PST (9:30 EST) via Zoom at the San Mateo County Libraries. Admission is free. Register here.
January 21, 2021
Reading tonight
I will be reading from The Vanishing Sky this evening at 5 pm EST, in conversation with Sandell Morse, author of the powerful memoir The Spiral Shell.
We will be discussing the surprising overlaps between people's experiences in wartime Germany and France.
Registration is free at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/northshi...
I'm looking forward to the chance to chat and answer questions from readers.
We will be discussing the surprising overlaps between people's experiences in wartime Germany and France.
Registration is free at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/northshi...
I'm looking forward to the chance to chat and answer questions from readers.
November 28, 2020
For the foghorn when there is no fog by Sarah Hannah
Like so many other people with loved ones in assisted living facilities, I will go visit my mom in memory care today and stand outside her window. I wish we could be together in person. I wish her cognition weren't failing, but she still recognizes me when I visit and her spirits are usually good. And when my daughter comes along with me, my mother is lit from within. Nothing makes her happier than seeing her granddaughter, growing taller by the day and standing there on the lawn outside her window. My mother doesn't say much on those visits, but she doesn't need to. It's enough that we're together.
Dementia is a thief. It steals our memories one after the next. It threatens to snuff the light inside that makes us each who we are. But when I see my mother smiling from her chair, I know -- for now at least -- she's still there. Her memories may be fading, but she's still my mom who loves me and my daughter and the memory of my father. Who wants me to button up my coat against the chill. And of all the things she taught me, her struggle with this disease has taught me perhaps the most important -- gratitude.
If you have a loved one struggling with this terrible disease, I wish strength and peace for you and I hope you find some measure of comfort in the memories of your loved one from when they were well.
This remarkable poem by Sarah Hannah has given me great comfort over the years. She was a fierce and lovely poet whose work captures the beauty and pain of living in a way few do.
Dementia is a thief. It steals our memories one after the next. It threatens to snuff the light inside that makes us each who we are. But when I see my mother smiling from her chair, I know -- for now at least -- she's still there. Her memories may be fading, but she's still my mom who loves me and my daughter and the memory of my father. Who wants me to button up my coat against the chill. And of all the things she taught me, her struggle with this disease has taught me perhaps the most important -- gratitude.
If you have a loved one struggling with this terrible disease, I wish strength and peace for you and I hope you find some measure of comfort in the memories of your loved one from when they were well.
This remarkable poem by Sarah Hannah has given me great comfort over the years. She was a fierce and lovely poet whose work captures the beauty and pain of living in a way few do.
November 24, 2020
5 things I wish I'd known whenI first started writing
Writing is a form of controlled insanity, it sometimes seems to me. You work in solitude for months or years or many years. You work though you’re certain the world doesn’t need another novel or short story — and certainly not yours. And then when you’ve given your story or your novel everything you have, you send it out to strangers. In the past ten years that I’ve been submitting my fiction, I’ve learned five things that have helped me through the process.
Writing Is About Empathy and Not Cleverness
Writing and reading are both at their core acts of empathy. For me at least, cleverness has no place in writing. It can reveal itself as contempt — for your characters or your readers — and either one will be fatal to the project. I try not to let myself care whether people think I'm smart or not. The poet Clarissa Pinkola Estes has said that “[o]ften the blank page is the only one listening to the soul’s suffering.” I try to set my suffering and my joy down on the page without worrying about what people will think.
Let Rejection Be Your Fuel
One of my short stories was rejected by seventy-seven different journals and contests before it was accepted. I kept sending the story out, again and again, until it found a home. And then, to my astonishment and delight, that story was selected for inclusion in the O.Henry Prize Collection. Even as I found out the amazing news, I was racking up more form rejections for other stories. More red entries in my submissions spreadsheet, and I just doubled down. I wrote more and submitted more and it was an honor to be part of the process. It's the same way with reader reviews of my writing. Some people will like my work and other's won't, but all I can do is keep on going.
Beware of Praise
This one is tough, but I remind myself to focus on thoughtful criticism and not on praise. Nothing is more dangerous when you’re writing than praise. Compliments will freeze you up or, even worse, you’ll start to write for the strokes instead of for your characters. So if somebody says something lovely -- like your prose sparkles or your story has a compelling strangeness to it -- don't linger on it. Otherwise you’ll look at whatever you’re working on now and you’ll start to doubt yourself. This sentence doesn’t sparkle, you’ll say. There’s nothing wonderfully strange about the characters in this story, and then you’ll start to make changes because you want sparkles and you want strangeness and you won’t hear what your characters are trying to tell you.
An exception to his rule is if somebody says that your work moved them. That the characters touched them somehow. It somebody says that, hold on to it. Hold it close to your heart because there is nothing more wonderful than moving people with your work.
Don’t Be Intimidated by Great Writing
I shield myself a little as I am working on a first draft of a novel or a story. I stay away from fiction, no matter how much I want to read a particular book or story. I’ve found that the characters and the prose rhythm of fiction I admire encroaches on my own writing, and so I read poetry instead. As much of it as I can find. Poetry in journals and in collections and on daily poem sites, and I hone in on the poems that fly and dance and move me and I try to use this beauty as fuel for my prose.
Write With Urgency
Write with everything you have in every moment. I have to remind myself about this all the time because it’s easy to forget. Don’t save your best prose for later. Use it now. Use it and more will come.
I'd like to say that I do all these things every day, but in truth I fail as often as I succeed. And still I keep on going, and I'm grateful for every moment I have to write.
Writing Is About Empathy and Not Cleverness
Writing and reading are both at their core acts of empathy. For me at least, cleverness has no place in writing. It can reveal itself as contempt — for your characters or your readers — and either one will be fatal to the project. I try not to let myself care whether people think I'm smart or not. The poet Clarissa Pinkola Estes has said that “[o]ften the blank page is the only one listening to the soul’s suffering.” I try to set my suffering and my joy down on the page without worrying about what people will think.
Let Rejection Be Your Fuel
One of my short stories was rejected by seventy-seven different journals and contests before it was accepted. I kept sending the story out, again and again, until it found a home. And then, to my astonishment and delight, that story was selected for inclusion in the O.Henry Prize Collection. Even as I found out the amazing news, I was racking up more form rejections for other stories. More red entries in my submissions spreadsheet, and I just doubled down. I wrote more and submitted more and it was an honor to be part of the process. It's the same way with reader reviews of my writing. Some people will like my work and other's won't, but all I can do is keep on going.
Beware of Praise
This one is tough, but I remind myself to focus on thoughtful criticism and not on praise. Nothing is more dangerous when you’re writing than praise. Compliments will freeze you up or, even worse, you’ll start to write for the strokes instead of for your characters. So if somebody says something lovely -- like your prose sparkles or your story has a compelling strangeness to it -- don't linger on it. Otherwise you’ll look at whatever you’re working on now and you’ll start to doubt yourself. This sentence doesn’t sparkle, you’ll say. There’s nothing wonderfully strange about the characters in this story, and then you’ll start to make changes because you want sparkles and you want strangeness and you won’t hear what your characters are trying to tell you.
An exception to his rule is if somebody says that your work moved them. That the characters touched them somehow. It somebody says that, hold on to it. Hold it close to your heart because there is nothing more wonderful than moving people with your work.
Don’t Be Intimidated by Great Writing
I shield myself a little as I am working on a first draft of a novel or a story. I stay away from fiction, no matter how much I want to read a particular book or story. I’ve found that the characters and the prose rhythm of fiction I admire encroaches on my own writing, and so I read poetry instead. As much of it as I can find. Poetry in journals and in collections and on daily poem sites, and I hone in on the poems that fly and dance and move me and I try to use this beauty as fuel for my prose.
Write With Urgency
Write with everything you have in every moment. I have to remind myself about this all the time because it’s easy to forget. Don’t save your best prose for later. Use it now. Use it and more will come.
I'd like to say that I do all these things every day, but in truth I fail as often as I succeed. And still I keep on going, and I'm grateful for every moment I have to write.
November 22, 2020
If you want to write
Time is so precious, we all know this to be true. And yet I wish I’d valued my time more when I was younger. I had more time to write then than I likely ever will again, but I didn’t know it or appreciate it. Obligations only increase with age. Finding time to write becomes more challenging as you have to hold down a job, raise children, care for aging parents, and do all the other things that are part of adulthood. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to write when you’re older. Of course, you will if you want to. You can always find reasons to write no matter how much or how little time you have. And you can always find reasons not to write, too.
Every day I try to find reasons to write. I don't always succeed. Sometimes the day's events conspire against me. But I keep my characters close to me. I think about them when I'm driving or making a breakfast (maybe that's why the eggs are always overcooked!) or waiting for the school pick-up. I think about them so they'll be waiting for me when I get back to the keyboard.
The chance to write is a gift. It can be a balm for loneliness. You will meet characters who surprise you and linger with you long after their stories are written. With any luck, it will connect you to readers who are moved by your stories, too. It’s solitary, yes, and a little peculiar, but I feel gratitude every day when I sit down to my blank screen.
Every day I try to find reasons to write. I don't always succeed. Sometimes the day's events conspire against me. But I keep my characters close to me. I think about them when I'm driving or making a breakfast (maybe that's why the eggs are always overcooked!) or waiting for the school pick-up. I think about them so they'll be waiting for me when I get back to the keyboard.
The chance to write is a gift. It can be a balm for loneliness. You will meet characters who surprise you and linger with you long after their stories are written. With any luck, it will connect you to readers who are moved by your stories, too. It’s solitary, yes, and a little peculiar, but I feel gratitude every day when I sit down to my blank screen.
November 20, 2020
Kindle version of The Vanishing Sky
November 9, 2020
Reading tomorrow with Alexander Starritt
For those who are interested, Alexander Starritt (author of We Germans) and I will be reading and talking about our books tomorrow, Tuesday, 11/10, at 5 pm EST, in a free virtual event sponsored by the Lewes Library in Delaware.
We Germans is a compelling novel, written in the form of a letter from a German grandfather trying to explain his service on the Eastern front to his grandson many years later. It's devastating -- horrific and tender in equal measure.
Both books raise questions about collective guilt and why people sometimes fail to act when confronted by evil. I'm very much looking forward to our chat and to questions from the audience.
If you're interested, the link to register is here.
We Germans is a compelling novel, written in the form of a letter from a German grandfather trying to explain his service on the Eastern front to his grandson many years later. It's devastating -- horrific and tender in equal measure.
Both books raise questions about collective guilt and why people sometimes fail to act when confronted by evil. I'm very much looking forward to our chat and to questions from the audience.
If you're interested, the link to register is here.
November 3, 2020
We Keep Nothing
My mother has moments when she remembers
things that never happened
and she describes them with a specificity
that stills my heart.
She wanted to adopt a baby in 1963
but her in-laws wouldn’t let her and she knows a man
whose rabbit wears a silk scarf and he walks it along
the streets and I wonder if there is anything true
in these stories, an artifact, a spark, a single detail,
and I search for it, befuddled.
A star still shines though
it has died, its light carries
across the miles and the years,
that cold expanse between what is lost
and what we still can see.
I caught a firefly once
to show my daughter how easy
it was to trap it in my net.
I caught it between flashes
imagining where it might be and reaching
into the darkness. Sometimes faith suffices.
Sometimes faith is all we have.
We released it together,
my daughter and I. We opened
the net, and it found its way
out the way every living thing
knows how to be born.
things that never happened
and she describes them with a specificity
that stills my heart.
She wanted to adopt a baby in 1963
but her in-laws wouldn’t let her and she knows a man
whose rabbit wears a silk scarf and he walks it along
the streets and I wonder if there is anything true
in these stories, an artifact, a spark, a single detail,
and I search for it, befuddled.
A star still shines though
it has died, its light carries
across the miles and the years,
that cold expanse between what is lost
and what we still can see.
I caught a firefly once
to show my daughter how easy
it was to trap it in my net.
I caught it between flashes
imagining where it might be and reaching
into the darkness. Sometimes faith suffices.
Sometimes faith is all we have.
We released it together,
my daughter and I. We opened
the net, and it found its way
out the way every living thing
knows how to be born.
October 31, 2020
bookplates
For readers who like either of my books, I'd be happy to send you a signed (and/or personalized) bookplate. You can reach out to me via my website , and I'll send one your way.
Happy Halloween, and stay well.
Happy Halloween, and stay well.
