Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

El Nido de Mia

Posted on April 27, 2016

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…

 

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El nido de Mia at FILBO

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El nido de Olivier (at the book birth of the Dutch version)

Categories: A Bit of Everything

San Francisco, Here I Come

Posted on April 21, 2016

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 the numbing beauty of booze. A book with a genderqueer touch.

Why San Francisco? My protagonist will end up on the streets of San Francisco and I have rented a studio not too far from a church that provides free meals for the homeless, so I’ll be right where I need to be.

 

Will I miss Amsterdam? Possibly, although not in summer when its canals and streets are flooded with – mostly stoned – admirers of the city.

Will I miss my two men? Definitely! But I will survive and so will they. If one of them keeps the Internet up and running, we can FaceTime or Skype any time to keep in touch.

Will I accomplish my goal? Absolutely! My heart says I so, my crit buddies are confident and I can even hear the encouragement of my muse in the wind’s whispers.

 

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Categories: A Bit of Everything

Paname’s Inspiration

Posted on April 11, 2016

 

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

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Für Paul Celan: Aschenblume, Anselm Kiefer, 2006

 

Categories: Books, The Views, Views Abroad, YA books

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A Poet Left Us

Posted on April 6, 2016

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

 

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Categories: Books

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The End

Posted on March 26, 2016

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

 

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Categories: Amsterdam Views, Books, The Views, YA books

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Breathe Alone

Posted on March 21, 2016

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

 

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The little boy grew up a healthy and happy young man, studying aerospace engineering and member of the Delft Hyperloop team

Categories: Books, YA books

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To Be or Not To Be?

Posted on March 17, 2016

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 guess. We also touched on the dark side of the mind and the dark side of the story. On the light, or more specifically on the absence of light and how that affects the novel and the reader’s experience. It was a good exchange that moved both me and the story forward.

 

While writing the next scenes, my muse decided to throw in some existentialist musings of his own. He shot me some balls about death being a mere exit versus death being a liberation, about the ‘to be’ as the only answer (to life or to death, I wonder). Good stuff to think about, not just for the book and the writing but also for life in general. What is death? And what if death is a self chosen one like with Ophelia? (Mind you, we assume she took her own life, but we don’t know for sure, as the bard doesn’t give us any clues about what happens in between the acts.)

 

After these thought-provoking tête-a-têtes with the playwright and the muse, I decided to let this whole ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ thing simmer for a while and just wear my favorite Tee.

 

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Categories: Books, YA books

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