March Update
I’m trying something new today this month — an update of the stories that caught my eye over the past month but didn’t make it into full length blog posts. Here then, in alphabetical order, I present: CHIMPANZEES IN THE … Read More
Meeting Gulzhahan
For the next few weeks (or months) I’ll be popping in on Fridays with a Deleted Scene from my memoir, At Home on the Kazakh Steppe. Let’s call them the “lost deleted scenes.” As I put together my new ebook … Read More
Daylight Saving Time Redux
If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ve already noted that I’m a BIG ADVOCATE of doing away with DST. But, first, what this post needs is a photo. I’ll be right back. While wandering around … Read More
Flexibility, Patience, and a Sense of Humor
As I collect the various Deleted Scenes to create a small eBook, I’m finding a few I’d like to recirculate. And rewrite! Here’s one from April, 2013, called Finding Serenity. This time around, I’m calling it: Flexibility, patience, and a sense of … Read More
The Sharwa Bazaar
I’m back with one of the many Deleted Scenes. This one is something of a hybrid — parts of it show up at a later time in the book. But here’s the original description of this amazing place, the … Read More
Raw Herring and Other Peace Corps Dangers
This past Friday, the New York Times ran two stories on the Peace Corps. The first article I saw, Peace Corps Volunteers in Their Own Words by Michael Roston, is a collection of short first-person accounts from recent volunteers (more … Read More
Killing Our Darlings
How often have we memoirists heard that phrase? “Killing our darlings” sounded stark to me, when I first heard it, nearly five years ago now. Yet, over the ensuing years I’ve come to recognize that this is exactly what … Read More
A 60th Jubilee in Kazakhstan
For weeks Gulzhahan had been reminding me of the “Sixtieth Jubilee” to which Woody and I were invited. Invitations, if offered at all, usually came a day or two ahead. Since hers had come weeks ahead, I knew it … Read More