This Thursday at 7 pm I’ll be speaking at the public library in Oak park, Illinois.
Oak park is the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway. I like to think that the Nobel Prize winner and I have a special bond.
It’s not true, of course, but I like to think it.
After all, Ernest and I were both born in Chicago suburbs. We’re both writers, and both of us thought it’d be cool to live in Paris someday.
But wait. There’s more. The company that published my children’s book is called Blue Marlin Publications. Get it? BLUE MARLIN? They’re named for the fish in “The Old man and the Sea.”
And so, considering this tight bond, it will be a special honor to speak at the Public Library in Ernest’s hometown. Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park in 1899 and stayed there until his teens. From there he moved to Kansas City to write for a newspaper, then he sailed to Europe to drive an ambulance for the Red Cross in Italy. He was injured there and was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valor.
I got the rest of the story from a web site describing the Hemingway House in Oak park.
“Not long after, he would return to the Chicago suburbs to nurse his wounds, and shortly after he was healed, moved on to Paris and a more spectacular life.”
And that, of course, was the beginning of Hemingway’s demise. After all, how could anything be more spectacular than life in Oak park??
Here are details about my spectacular event this Thursday. Magic Tree Bookstore will provide books for me to sign after the event:
January 24 (Thursday), 7 p.m.
Oak Park Public Library
Session: From Memoir to Doggoir: Creative Ways to Get Personal Essays and Stories Published
834 Lake Street
Oak Park, IL 60301
www.oppl.org
Contact: Deborah Dowley Preiser, Public Information Officer, 708.697.6915
For more information on Ernest Hemingway, visit Timeless Hemingway:
http://www.timelesshemingway.com
Thanks for the link – I should have known there’d be a Hemingway Society out there somewhere. But who knew there’d be a blog dedicated to Hemingway, too? I linked to the blog “one True Sentence” from your site and read all about a presidential hopeful who is inspired by a Hemingway character. To find out which candidate I’m talking about, go to :
http://www.timelesshemingway.com/onetruesentence/pivot/entry.php?id=45#body
Memoir to Doggoir- you know Ernest loved cats- go figure.
You know, after doing the teeny bit of research about Hemingway for this blog post, I started thinking hey, it might be cool to see where he lived in key West. This idea had nothing to do with the below zero temperatures we’ve been experiencing in Chicago, of course!
ANYWAY, when I looked into the Key West house idea and heard about all those cats I decided maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Not so sure how Hanni would respond, plus it would kill poor Mike: he’s deathly allergic to cats!
Ah, well. Guess we’ll stick to Chicago. And Oak Park.
Hey Beth
My name is Jessica. I met you last night at Oak Park Public library. I’m 15 years old and I love to write. so it was really fun to get ideas on how
to get my stuff published. I told you that I love to write but my problem is that I don’t have any ideas. I actually got published when I was like 9 years
old in a magazine called EP(exceptional parent magazine). its a magizine for parents with children with disablities. anyways here is the link to my poem
that I wrote and its on the internet. I don’t have the article that I wrote when I was like 9 though. I also have started writing song lyrics which has
been a lot of fun!! I have written about 11 songs so I love to write and express my self through writing and songs. I haven’t gotten any music with my
songs but we are trying to work on that. I love to sing too but I have stage fright. the main thing is that I like to express my self through writing.
ok so here is the link to my poem. let me know if it works.
http://www.losethetrainingwheels.org/default.aspx?Lev=2&ID=13
Jessica,
Wow! You’ve been published in Exceptional parent?! That’s a great magazine! I’ve tried many, many times to get an essay or story accepted there but have had no luck. it is so VERY cool that you got your story in Exceptional Parent, you are already a publishd writer and could probably teach me a thing or two. I linked to your poem, too, and absolutely loved it.
Now for some writing ideas. I find it easier to write things if I come up with short subjects, small ideas. This is how I teach the grandmas and grandpas in my senior citizen writing class. I give them one short subject, send them home for a week and tell them to come back with 500 words about that subject. Some ideas I’ve used with them:
How I Met My Friend _______ (fill in the blank with your friend’s name)
My First Airplane Ride
Vacation Fiasco (a vacation that didn’t go the way you’d planned)
What
Are You Afraid Of?
Those are just some ideas I’ve used in class.
For you, though, I’d like to see you get more of your writing actually PUBLISHED in magazines. So here are a few magazines that ask for essays from readers. My advice is to go to a bookstore that sells magazines and look at a copy of each magazine I’ve listed here –sometimes they change their format and decide not to accept essays anymore, always good to check. Also if you look at the magazine you will find an address where you are supposed to send your essay!
1. A magazine called “Twins Magazine” has a section called
“Special Miracles.” I bet you could write something about you and your sister Amanda on that subject!
2. Spirituality and Health Magazine has a feature called “How Many Ways Can You Open Your heart?” and my notes say to send essays to openheart@spirituality.com,
3. Dog Fancy – they used to take long essays, but now I’ve been told they just want 150 words or so about a dog, and then they publish it with a photo of the dog. Seems to me you might have a unique perspective on Amanda’s service dog, I bet you could write something interesting about that.
Hope this helps. I’m so glad you wrote to me. And so glad you and your mom and sister came on such a cold night last night — thanks!
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