oh such a (bad) writer I was: three talks this week

This week I'll be giving three different talks on three very different topics. I've been in the midst of preparations.

The first, this Tuesday evening, is a keynote on behalf of Historic RittenhouseTown , birthplace of paper in British North America and home to David Rittenhouse, a polymath of such considerable renown that Philadelphia's largest square bears his name. I'll be talking about my recent visit to this historic site (the topic of my Sunday Inquirer story, a link to which is here ). But I'll begin by reflecting on my own relationship to paper. Which necessarily involves my reflections on my life as a writer. Which means that I must confess what a poor writer I was.

Proof:

I may have been an angsty adolescent, but my darkest secret involved nothing more than this: a box of watercolors, a drugstore paintbrush, a Bic pen, and a series of blank books with Naugahyde covers. I painted the pages of those books to buckling saturation. I waited, impatiently, for them to dry. Afterward, alone on my roof or in the shade of a tree, I Bic-scratched into those multitonal hues such awe-invoking grandeur as this:

A daffodil dons her yellow skirt,
Smoothes out the ruffled pleats of the hem,
Places her fringed bonnet on her tiny head. . . and goes out for tea.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/...

On Thursday I'll be joining Leadership Philadelphia , an organization dedicated to mobilizing and connecting the talent of the private sector to serve the greater needs of the community. I'll be part of a much larger agenda, offering thoughts on home and a writing workshop to the 120 members of the current core class.
Over the weekend, I'm on a very secret mission. But I can't talk about that one yet.