So proud of the Spanish version of Mia’s nest! El nido de Mia came out this week and had its book birth at the Feria Internacional del Libro de Bogotá, Colombia. It was such an honor to work with the super talented Angela Peláez Vargas and bring my words to her wonderful and sweet story and illustrations, a story that gripped me from the moment Angela showed me the first illustrations and told me her story idea. My son’s hair shows you why…
In just a little over a week I will be back in my beloved San Francisco, the feedback of my critique buddies in my back pocket and a fresh Scrivener doc at the ready on my laptop. I have carved out three months of solitary writing in that inspirational city to do a full rewrite of my Young Adult novel, the one I was working on back in January, also in San Francisco. The book is still a hard one, but the sharpest edges have gone now the first draft is done. I think I’ve created enough distance between the story and my memories, and I am ready to plunge back in. What’s the book about? A sixteen-year-old girl, the betrayal of a sibling, guilt and self-loathing, and…
a terminus spews travelers out into the city’s streets i jump a line and fly the five to where le nuit debout resides, encircled by black uzis from my camp four stories high i count the stairs and steps to anselm kiefer’s looming lines that suck me in and spin my brain through barren scenes of leaden books, burned and black, that dot a paint-encrusted field of snow paul celan recites his strophes the muse climbs up me silently i am alone and wonder if my words shall survive the summer
Tagged: #amwriting, Anselm Kiefer, Aschenblume, Ash Flower, le nuit debout, Paris, Paul Celan
once again a poet stopped his world and euphemism colors the word that tripped him curbed him urged him as if it was a mere dent in his landscape a hollow of his skin as if his breath was temporarily held by a lower pressure in his atmosphere the fingers of mourners and judges point in solace at this genteelism of the unimaginative of those who never felt the draw of the black nothingness that sucks you in and spins its deadly threads around your brain tells you tomorrow is no option the future is not yours to have
Tagged: depression, poet, suicide, Wim Brands
an elm tree stands oblivious of the misery in my witless brain its bark rutted with waterfalls of moss and mould that suck up sap buds the color of crimson crowd its branches festering wounds ready to burst a swift breeze whips quicksilver over chocolate water eyes that mock and flee similitudes of the words that mock and flee my pen before I can ink them in a line a boat floats by fingers point sunglasses stare up cameras snap as if they can capture the illusive muse and me in an embrace of body and mind a display of fire that feeds me the final scenes and carries me to the climax of a novel that gutted my soul
Tagged: #amwriting, Amsterdam, canal, Herengracht, Mina Witteman, muse, YA
the untimely severance of life’s cord between a mother and her child throws worlds into black holes it spins a screen of unseen pain the powerless want to turn back what’s done taints days and nights exhausts the brain, the body for you cannot change the fabric of what is already woven you can love and hold and trust the hands of others like a writer has no other option but to love and hold and trust the hands of others when life’s events cut the cord between him and his story before the words can breathe alone
There’s some Shakespeare in the novel I’m working on. I’ve mentioned it before. Hamlet, to be precise. He pops up in the more troubling scenes and every now and again the bard and his word play throw me off course and make me loose track of what I want with this story (well, not entirely, just a little). In any case, I needed a bit of guidance and I needed it quick – I have my crit buddies pounding on my door. What better solution to force a breakthrough than to meet up with one of the bard’s greatest interpreters, the playwright George Isherwood. We had a riveting conversation about death, which is a big thing in the story, and about life. Equally big in the story, I…
Tagged: #amwriting, Death, Guidance, Hamlet, Life, muse, Ophelia, Shakespeare
Mina Witteman 