tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30962302008-07-25T11:58:11.569-07:00latrippinoreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-20277782629202704112008-07-25T11:52:00.000-07:002008-07-25T11:58:11.598-07:00

I'm going to be teaching a fiction writing workshop in September, at Channel Rock, on Cortes Island. I know it's last minute, but I just decided to do it, and if it goes well, I'll repeat it next year. So check out the description at the Channel Rock website, or in the What's New section of this site, and drop me a line if you'd be interested in attending something like this, either now or in the

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-84596023441964488022008-07-25T10:42:00.000-07:002008-07-25T11:51:40.938-07:00

Just a follow up note on new EVERYDAYZEN website: we launched the site in April, and since then we've added about 100 of Norman's talks and lectures, so please feel free to stop by and check it out. Here are two of my favorites, about language and poetry: Language (audio) Language and Dharma (text) Norman is a poet, as well as a Zen teacher, and so language is something he returns to again and

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-74642212882857608212008-04-29T14:38:00.000-07:002008-04-29T16:39:29.520-07:00

I just figured out that I can upload files to this weblog, so here's a link to the PDF of an article called "The Art of Losing: On Writing, Dying, and Mom," that I wrote for Shambhala Sun magazine last month. It's based on a talk I gave at a benefit for the Zen Hospice Project, and some of the bits of it are from this weblog. I really like the way Shambhala Sun did the layout, with such nice

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-6024135193155108912008-04-29T14:06:00.000-07:002008-04-29T14:36:00.443-07:00

I wanted to make sure to link to the article, "Why Bother?" by Michael Pollan in last week's New York Times. The title says it all, and it's required reading if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by the state of the planet. I'm a big fan of Pollan's work. His 1998 article, "Playing God in the Garden" was one of the things that inspired me to write about genetically engineered potatoes in "All

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-85546519389030665032008-02-26T20:27:00.000-08:002008-02-27T06:20:34.413-08:00

How to re-enter this world of my weblog? So much has happened, so much to talk about, and how do I account for my absence? Well, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we just go in and out—of our projects, our journals, our intentions and our resolves. What matters is just that we return, eventually, to today, when I'm excited about a story I read, and I want to share it. It's about the Sval­bard

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-91339067012155229452007-11-05T12:14:00.000-08:002007-11-05T13:49:17.529-08:00

Here's something for friends in Vancouver. I'm going to be doing a reading with Shaena Lambert, at the Joy Kogawa House this Saturday, November 10, at 3:00 - 5:00. Hmm, I see that the graphics of this poster aren't reproducing very well, so here's the info you'll need: War and Remembrance A reading in support of TLC’s writers-in-residence program at Historic Joy Kogawa House Location: 1450

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-18078372186015026942007-09-17T14:46:00.000-07:002007-09-17T16:22:13.180-07:00

It's been a pleasant, though somewhat unconvincing summer—not quite hot or long enough to persuade me that it's time for fall, but then I don't seem to get much say in this matter. Time just passes, whether I like it or not...or perhaps it's me who's doing the passing, and time just is. Being. Hmm. These are wintery thoughts, indeed. Here's a link to a nice article in Publishers Weekly about a

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-86788365279083864262007-05-30T19:11:00.000-07:002007-05-30T19:40:39.625-07:00

Earlier this month I was delighted to learn that the Vancouver Public Library had selected “My Year of Meats” as the 2007 choice for One Book One Vancouver, a municipal reading program described as “a book club for the entire city.” It’s the oldest program of its kind in Canada, and it’s been great. I’ve been going down to Vancouver every couple of weeks to do events of various kinds, but the

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1171493078491136622007-02-14T12:54:00.000-08:002007-03-29T16:39:22.756-07:00

It's Valentine's Day, and I'm in love, and there you have it. I am in the throes of a romance, which has obsessed and inspired me now for almost a week. It was pretty much love at first sight, and while I'm skeptical of quick infatuations (and there have been a lot of them), I'm starting to feel confident that this attraction will turn into a real and lasting relationship. Of course, I'm in

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1157861291668084662006-09-26T20:51:00.000-07:002006-10-12T20:59:32.293-07:00

This, out from Norton—I just received my contributor's copy of Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience, edited by Chandra Prasad. Rebecca Walker wrote a great introduction, and other contributors include Danzy Senna, Cristina Garcia, and Diana Abu-Jaber, Peter Ho Davies and Wayde Compton. It's an excellent collection, and I'm happy to be part of it. Chandra contacted

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1158369787668253372006-09-15T17:28:00.000-07:002007-03-19T07:01:41.496-07:00

That's the Hebrew title of "All Over Creation," and this is the cover of the Israeli edition! My wonderful editor at the publishing house, Am Oved, just emailed it to me. I'm assuming "Al Pnei Habriaa Kula" is a direct translation of "All Over Creation," but I may be mistaken, and if so, somebody please correct me. I have to say, I love this cover. I think it's hilarious. It's always

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1157912792400938152006-09-10T10:43:00.000-07:002006-09-10T12:00:01.106-07:00

This is a beautiful book, published by Kodansha, entitled Inside and other short fiction: Japanese women by Japanese women. It's edited by Cathy Layne, whose focus was on selecting work by prize-winning popular Japanese women novelists who have never been published in English before. The book design and the cover art, by Tomoko Sawada, is subtle and stunning. So it's a ground-breaking collection

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1157858896284611072006-09-09T18:44:00.000-07:002006-09-15T18:24:38.683-07:00

Fall is here. Yesterday we had our first real rain in months, the crickets are chirping, the days are growing shorter, and already the power has been out twice this week. In the winter, once the storms start, it's not unusual for the power to go out for days, and when it does, everything slows way down. We eat by the light of a kerosene lamp and go to bed early. It sounds a lot nicer than it is.

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1135975851919685402005-12-30T11:38:00.000-08:002005-12-30T13:13:42.350-08:00

Simon Schama wrote an excellent essay, "The Story So Far," for the Guardian, in which he reports on the decade, the noughties, from the point of view of an oracular, fully digitized historian named Sybil, a century from now. It is funny and bleak and, well, oracular. Schama is brilliant. New Year's Day is the most important holiday in Japan. The Japanese New Year greeting is "Akemashite,

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1131312210977645882005-11-06T12:57:00.000-08:002006-11-14T10:32:37.546-08:00

Recently I’ve been reading poetry again, something I’d gotten out of the habit of doing. I just got a copy of a wonderful new collection by my friend, Jen Benka, entitled, "a box of longing with fifty drawers.” It’s a poetic deconstruction of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, consisting of 52 poems, one for each of the 52 words of the document: We, the people of the United States, in

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1122051669405770992005-07-22T09:56:00.000-07:002005-07-25T10:24:46.693-07:00

Another summer, another sesshin. The Japanese word "sesshin" means "touching the mind" or "joining the heart." It's a week-long Zen meditation retreat, and I've been doing this one at Samish Island for several summers now. There were about fifty people this year, which was a big group, so the energy was pretty strong. We sat zazen from Sunday to Friday, then on Friday evening we did a Jukai

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1109358525446948722005-02-25T10:31:00.000-08:002005-02-25T11:56:40.083-08:00

I know it's a belated greeting, but it makes sense somehow. Our roosters are always late. They are famous for it. They go to bed late at night, and they get up late in the morning, and so do all our hens. It is tempting to blame the roosters, but it’s not their fault. It’s our fault, or rather it’s my husband’s fault, because even though we’ve lived in the country for almost eight years now, he

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1106887528689421922005-01-27T20:24:00.000-08:002005-09-06T11:27:22.423-07:00

December 8, 2005 Dear Norman, Thank you for asking me to write this. As you know, my mom died one month ago, today. She had three terminal conditions: Alzheimer’s, cancer of the jaw, and ninety years of living. Her death should have come as no surprise, but of course when she died in my arms, I was astonished. How can this life, which has persisted here on this earth for over ninety years,

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1101330497072575872004-11-24T13:02:00.000-08:002005-09-06T11:30:26.686-07:00

My mom is luminescent. Her skin is paper thin now, so transparent that you can see the light of her shining through. Oliver says she looks like a glowing pupa, preparing to emerge from a cocoon. From time to time she twitches. Her limbs are bone thin, bent, and brittle as an insect’s. Her fingers curl like claws. Occasionally, a myoclonic spasm wracks her, and when it subsides, her hands lift

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1086246376089091832004-06-02T23:48:00.000-07:002004-06-05T00:32:13.520-07:00

Last week I helped co-convene a media conference called Media That Matters which was very cool, indeed. Does media matter? Well, in an ultimate sense, who knows, but it sure is a fun question to ponder, with like-minded souls, during our sweet, short tenure here on earth. Often, though, I get pretty sick of the media, tired of all the reactive chatter, including my own. It is not an

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1085514536466723162004-05-25T12:07:00.000-07:002004-05-25T15:33:59.730-07:00

I've been waiting for someone to address an aspect of the torture at Abu Ghraib which I, as an American woman, find particularly confusing and shameful—namely that three out of the seven torturers, pictured in the photographs, are American women. And that's just the beginning. The director of the prison, Gen. Janis Karpinski, is an American woman. Major Gen. Barbara Fast, the top U.S.

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1085506101022936422004-05-25T09:53:00.000-07:002004-05-25T11:59:14.176-07:00

Well, I'm sorry about the gap in the chronology of this weblog. I think I just needed to take a break from the relentless passage of time. Maybe I thought I could make time stop by stepping out of its current, but I can't. A lot has happened. My mother turned 90 last month and we had a little birthday party for her. "How old am I?" she asked me. "You're ninety, mom." Her eyes widened. "I

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1073422331981413682004-01-06T12:15:00.000-08:002004-05-25T11:16:39.173-07:00

queen mom, looking winsome, a few days before christmas. photo by ester strijbos

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1068493308869939252003-11-10T11:41:00.000-08:002003-11-10T11:51:57.396-08:00

Last week, the LA Times banned the phrase resistance fighters to describe anti-American forces in Iraq, saying the term romanticizes the "insurgents" and "guerrillas" (editorially approved terms) and evokes World War II-era heroism. This morning, Oliver and I both received this link, from completely different sources, for The Meatrix, an effective piece of agitprop, which demonstrates that

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096230.post-1068273658516574572003-11-07T22:54:00.000-08:002003-11-07T23:04:24.120-08:00

I’m in Victoria, B.C., with my mom. We’re here because a second biopsy of her jaw yielded a positive diagnosis: squamous cell carcinoma. She just completed a series of ten radiation therapy treatments, or fractionations, in the hopes of shrinking the tumor. Left unchecked, the cancer would most likely eat into her jawbone, resulting in debilitating pain. Of course, there was a chance that the

ozekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14625035908786141916noreply@blogger.com