Lift Every Voice: The Relationship between Music and Writing

What has rhythm, dynamics, themes and tonalities and is not a song, jazz instrumental, quartet or other musical piece? Well – it’s writing! And I’m speaking of prose as well as poetry. So if you love to sing, play an instrument, or maybe simply listen to music, be encouraged. You probably could be a writer. […]

One Tortured Immigrants’ Son: Shelter: A Novel by Jung Yun

May 4, 2016 · by Ann J Temkin | in Book Reviews | tagged debut novels, Financial Crisis 2008, First Novels and Autobiography, Homes "Underwater" Financially, Immigrant Literature, Jung Yun, Korean American Generational Conflicts, Shelter by Jung Yun, Women Novelists Writing about Men | 6 Comments

I want so much to know whether Jung Yun has a second book in process. And if so, when I will be able to get hold of it. It is not often that I am stunned and bewitched by a novel, particularly a debut novel. All too often I understand the characters too early, push […]

Please Don’t Interrupt Us

February 10, 2016 · by Ann J Temkin | in The Writing Life | tagged Balancing responsibility and creativity, Jane Austen and her lack of privacy, Jane Austen at Chawton Cottage, JK Rowling writing Harry Potter in Edinburgh cafes, Toni Morrison and single mothers and time for self, Virginia Woolf and "A Room of One's Own", Virginia Woolf's writing shed, Women and writing spaces, Writing spaces | 15 Comments

“This is it!” I said to my husband. New to Atlanta, we were househunting back in the days when people actually drove around to look at houses. Who knew how many we had seen? There were of course the “impossibles” and the “unaffordables.” But the “maybe’s” were merging into an indistinguishable blur. In the case […]

A Boy with No History: A Review of Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese

October 28, 2015 · by Ann J Temkin | in Book Reviews | tagged Aboriginal People of Canada, Books about Fathers and Sons, Chippewa Indians, Family Secrets, First Nations People, Medicine Walk, Medicine Walk as Rite of Passage, Native Americans and Alcoholism, Ojibwa Culture and History, Ojibwa or Ojibway indians, Ojibwa Warrior Burial Rites, One Story One Song, Richard Wagamese, The Archetypal Search for the Father/ Search for Self | 7 Comments

“When you share stories you change things.” Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese is a novel that is all about stories. Wagamese takes us to the wilds of British Columbia sometime around the turn of the 21st century, and to an Ojibway family. A 16 year old boy desperately needs to hear his father’s stories, and […]

Does Memoir Tell the Truth?

July 29, 2015 · by Ann J Temkin | in Craft, The Writing Life | tagged Archetypes and Memoirs, Emotional Truth vs. Literal Truth in Memoir, Life Themes in Memoir Writing, Memoir vs. Biography, Memoir Writing, Memories and Memoirs, Past and Present in Memoir, Reflection in Memoir Writing, Searching for Truth in Memoirs, Teaching Memoir Writing, United Theological Seminary's Summer Institute | 14 Comments

“But other people in my family have a whole different memory of what happened. You said ‘tell your truth,’ but how do I know what’s true?” Elbows planted on the table, the young woman leaned into her words while her large eyes sent out beams of light from under the rim of her straw hat. […]

Beauty and the Monster: A Review of Rene Denfeld’s The Enchanted.

May 6, 2015 · by Ann J Temkin | in Book Reviews | tagged Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Death Penalty in the US, Death Row Investigation, History of the Death Penalty, Poverty and Crime, Prison and Redemption, Rene Denfeld, The Enchanted, The Innocence Project, Trauma and Crime | 3 Comments

I like mysteries and I like fiction that explores controversial subjects. So the BBC Outlook interview with Rene Denfeld immediately captured my attention. Denfeld’s first fictional work is a mystery set on death row with the surprising title The Enchanted. The Enchanted tells the story of three very broken main characters. “The lady” is a […]

Fishing – And Other Things I Had to Learn

February 18, 2015 · by Ann J Temkin | in The Writing Life | tagged Christian Jews in History, Discrimination against Jews in America, Fishing in the Gospels, How Jesus became a Gentile, Jewish Jesus, Palestine 1st century, Sight in the Sandstorm, The Jewish Jesus, The Language of the New Testamant, The Roman Empire and Jesus' time, The Second Jewish Temple, The Writing Life | 7 Comments

“How long did it take you to write your book?” David asked, holding out his copy for me to sign. “Two years to write, but at least a decade of research,” I probably answered. That’s what I usually say, but it’s only part of the truth. Sight In The Sandstorm: Jesus in His World and […]