This essay about the legacy of Cardinal Mazarin, which includes several libraries, is included in my book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in…
View More Libraries Are My TemplesCategory: Creative Writing
Entries filed under the Creative Writing category are pieces that are less reportage and more essayistic pieces I’ve composed. Though varied in their subject matter, each of them is a deeper exploration that many of the pieces I produce from my travels or as a way to explore literary design encounters. There is a building variety of them featured below, such as an exploration of New Journalism through the lens of one May Day when I was having a mani/pedi in New York City while the throngs of marching workers passed by the salon.
Another found me in a spot on a high bald in the Appalachians feeling the grief of nature’s decline while feeling the beauty of her surroundings. I explore my fascination with Django Reinhardt in “Hail Django, Gypsy of Jazz,” and I share my response to one of the most syncopated beach masses I’ve ever celebrated! I feel echoes back in time when combing through Edith Wharton’s papers at Yale, and I record my feelings about an experience I had on the Sioux reservations in South Dakota. I hope you enjoy these pieces, as they are closest to my heart!
The Emperor’s Displeasure
This essay about Napoléon’s displeasure with Germaine de Staël is included in my new book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in the book…
View More The Emperor’s DispleasureThe Personality of Place
So, this is how it feels to experience a medieval Tuscan village that has existed on a hillside in some form for almost 1000 years!…
View More The Personality of PlaceEudora Welty Finds Her Voice
When a writer begins to grapple with how to mine the outside world for inspiration, the process can be challenging. In her memoir, One Writer’s…
View More Eudora Welty Finds Her VoiceThe Architecture of Tango
I envy the pencil being held carefully between her fingers, the rasping sound the sharpener makes as a thin layer of wood peels away from…
View More The Architecture of TangoTouching Literary History
I will once again be touching literary history soon, as the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University reopened yesterday following a 16-month…
View More Touching Literary History