Tuesdays with Story

I started going to TWS in the spring of 2004.  Since then I have been a marginally active member, enjoy reading the newsletter and submit various literature reviews and author links from the NY Times.  I love 5th Tuesdays and have often brought guests to the parties.

I write daily in my journal recording my world, sometimes writing up to 500 words.  I have several big boxes of hard bound, hand written journal entries from the pre-Internet era dating from about 1970 – 2001.  I emailed Jerry parts of my Cairo, Egypt journal in 2006 and my Istanbul, Turkey journal in 2007 which he sometimes posted in the TWS newsletter.

I have written about a dozen short stories, mainly about my life in Turkey and Jamaica.  I took Creative Writing of the Short Story through UW- Madison Extension with Laurel Yourke which helped my writing a lot.  I recommend her writing courses.  I have a list of story ideas in a folder which I hope to get back to soon(er or later).   I have written a lot of poetry over the years, but after taking a Creative Writing of Poetry course from UW-Madison Extension a few years ago, I have hardly written any poems though I improved my poetry writing style!(?)!   I guess I did not enjoy being “up against the wall” of modern poetry. 

I try to read the I read the NY Times daily on-line and make frequent comments on some of the articles. I also read the Writer’s Almanac (Garrison Keillor) on-line and enjoy my daily dose of poetry there.  I occasionally forward a poem or author bio featured there to TWS for the newsletter. 

I have always been a big reader.  I often read a novel in a day in the summer when I was a kid.  I mainly enjoy literature, but also read nonfiction.  I recently read biographies of Coco Chanel, Martha Stewart and hope to soon get my hands on “My Life in France” by Julia Child.  I read “Istanbul” by Orhan Pamuk while visiting my husband Amir in Istanbul in the fall of 2008.  I love Michael Pollan.  Be sure to check out the new two hour PBS special “The Botany of Desire” (2009) http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/ based on his book by the same name published in 2001.