In an issue of Harper's, an erratic blogger by the name of Matthew Specktor described blogging's fundamental paradoxes--" the split between publicity and privacy, between Whitmanesque openness and Yeatsian retreat... "
I am more an erratic than a prolific blogger, though I am a prolific emailer and I used to be a prolific letter writer. I still love envelopes with stamps, writing addresses out longhand, taking time to write a long thoughtful letter to a friend. But that happens less and less.
But I digress.
But isn't that the nature of blogging?
There is such a swirl of events racing around me, around you, around all of us. This week saw historic health reform finally pass the House and head on its way to the Senate. I remember Paul Krugman at ALOUD, exactly 18 months ago, predicting that if we got a Dem in the White House, in 18 months we'd have some kind of health care reform. It's been a long slog (rhymes with blog), but I'm grateful for the changes on the way. At ALOUD last week, we hosted writer Tim O'Brien whose commentary on the line between fiction and nonfiction itself deserves a long blog. Misery in Haiti. the explosion of spring in my yard.
But today I will engage in a Yeatsian retreat.
I am primarily devoting the hours I have for writing mind into editing/revising my book THE CROOKED MIRROR.
But to anyone out there who actually reads this... I salute the effort it takes to capture, distill, ponder the swirl of life around us. Happy spring
BLOG: SWANS LAST DIVE (inactive) Please see my Crooked Mirror blog www.crookedmirror.wordpress.com
Interviews, Essays, Podcasts, Video
Los Angeles Times profile of me by Jeffrey Fleishman, July 2017
Louise Steinman, through the library's ALOUD program, invites writers and thinkers to ponder L.A. and the world
Cultural Weekly- In Her Own Words
What happened at ALOUD, an interview with Adam Leipzig
When a Rock is a Stone: Finding "Spiral Jetty"
Aug 8, 2018 essay in Los Angeles Review of Books
Slight Exaggeration: An Interview with poet Adam Zagajewski
May 28, 2017, Los Angeles Review of books
The Aphasia Book Club
My essay published in Los Angeles Review of Books, Summer Quarterly 2015
Interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hisham Matar
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
"Elegantly Wrapped Dung": or, a Polish Journalist's Posthumous Victory
Oct 2016, Los Angeles Review of Books blog, Maciej Ziembinski, European Court of Human Rights
The Body in Question: Two Poets/ALOUD series 2016
Conversation with Poets Sharon Olds and Robin Coste Lewis
ALOUD podcast, April 2016, with Helen Macdonald
My interview with Helen Macdonald, "H is for Hawk"
Los Angeles Review of Books, December 17, 2015
"Writer in Exile: An Interview with Yasmin Merei"
Interview with poet Jane Hirshfield, ALOUD series
"A Seismographic Aattention: An Evening of and On Poetry"
Los Angeles Review of Books blog "MY ENGLISH TEACHER"
In Memoriam Lorraine Schulmeister (1918-2012)
November 20, 2014 Los Angeles Times book review
"Three Minutes in Poland" offers glimpse of world lost to Holocaust
June 27 2011, Los Angles Review of Books THE GLATSTEIN CHRONICLES
Yizkor Bukhor: Reflections on the Yiddish Poet Jacob Glatstein
CROOKED MIRROR INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR
Nov 7, 2013 Louise Steinman in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Jack Miles, ALOUD series
VERA GRAN: The Accused (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2013)
a controversial singer of the Warsaw Ghetto, the subject of a fascinating investigative memoir by Agata Tuszynska
When Women Were Birds/Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams
Podcast of my conversation with Terry Tempest Williams at ALOUD on May 9, 2012 (or download from itunes)
Recognizing the Righteous in My Family's Polish Town
Jewish Journal of LA, Dec 2011
Father Patrick Desbois interview
Louise Steinman interviews Father Patrick Desbois, author of The Holocaust by Bullets, Oct 20, 2009
North Atlantic Books Interview 2008
Read an author interview about THE SOUVENIR on North Atlantic Books website
Los Angeles Times Nov 11, 2007
Louise Steinman: "Talking about L.A." interview with Jim Newton
Adopt a Village in Guatemala
I've volunteered with this terrific grassroots org aiding Mayan families in northwestern Guatemala. 10 stars.

The Crooked Mirror-- check out my wordpress blog

Great Horned Owl, Benson's Grove, Malheur Sept 2010

Scotty Mitchell www.scottymitchell.com

Buster in our kitchen

Lloyd's sculpture "Capsize" at Cardwell Jimmerson Gallery

last glow, Chatham Cemetery, Jan 4, 2010
Comments
On another subject, said 16 year old just read & loved O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Is there a podcast of his talk? If not, will you give it that "long blog" you say it deserves? We wd love to know what he said.
love, L
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who still writes real letters. I was the kid who had pen pals worldwide, saved the stamps, and tried to learn their languages.
I have a suggestion for an ALOUD speaker. How do I get the info to you?