Awhile back, I was working with a student whose memoir encompassed the AIDS epidemic, being (illegally) deported from American Samoa, taking a midnight tour of Algiers, lecturing Madeleine Albright on the United Nations’ failures during the AIDS crisis (while Albright was the UN Ambassador), and explaining a suitcase full of female condoms to curious customs inspectors in Tehran.
Feedback
In the 1840s, shortly after publishing his poem “The Vision of Sin,” Alfred Lord Tennyson received a letter from a Cambridge mathematics professor, who had a problem with a couplet in the middle that read:
“Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born.”
“If this were true,” the mathematician wrote, “the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death.”
Out Loud
What is that strange sound? It’s your work, your words, but it’s almost like … the words are coming out of your own mouth. Not in your head. Out loud.
Good news: chances to read your work, in front of people who are not a) related to you, b) your best friend, or c) your dog are starting to come back.