Online Essay on the Legacy of the Vietnam War

Posted on April 23, 2012 by larybloom • 2 Comments

 

Children in a village near Hue that now has a water pipeline for the first time -- installed by American war veterans.

 

My essay, Tea in Tuy Hoa: A Writer Makes Peace With The Vietnam War,was published online in early May by Welcome Table Press. The piece is based on a keynote address I gave at Fairfield University’s MFA Creative Writing program, and addresses a personal journey of 45 years from being in country to my return. It also discusses literature of the Vietnam War — novelists, poets and memoirists who tried to affect the public discourse.

 

Filed Under: News

Fiction or Memoir? A Writer Decides.

Posted on May 17, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

When Mary-Ann Tirone Smith set about to tell a terrifying story from childhood, the proper form for the narrative seemed obvious. She was adept at fiction, having produced several novels by then. (This qualified her, she says, as “a professional liar.”) But as she thought about the 1953 murder of an 11-year-old friend in their… Continue Reading

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How (Not) To Write a Book Review

Posted on May 15, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

  In Sunday’s Book Review in the Times, we learn that Anne Enright has written “a great book about babies.” My guess, however, is that many readers never got far enough in the piece to learn of Enright’s achievement. Her memoir, Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood, is mentioned only after reviewer Judith Newman, herself a… Continue Reading

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Juxto is Still All

Posted on May 13, 2012 by larybloom • 1 Comment

I thought of Jack McClintock, the South Florida writer, when I read the exquisite obit of Angelica Garnett, the last of the Bloomsbury circle to die, in the New York Times, Sunday, May 13. Over dinner one night in Miami in 1979, Jack ruminated on a secret of good writing. “Juxto is all,” he said…. Continue Reading

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Connecticut’s Own

Posted on April 6, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

None of the 400 or so guests at the 19th annual “Fandango” gala expected to bump into Paul Newman even though he had never missed a benefit for his Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. The actor who delivered measures of joy to thousands of children suffering from cancer, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia and other serious maladies was himself gravely ill at his home in Westport…. Continue Reading

Filed Under: Columns, Uncategorized

The Measure of a Woman

Posted on April 4, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

By her own account, Patrice Nelson is “a big, sturdy girl.” She was a college athlete back in the Pre-Lobo Era, long before wide attention was paid to the games played by women. For who among us, other than this Minnesota native, can recall the great volleyball upset of St. Cloud State in 1982 by her Moorhead State “ragamuffin” squad?… Continue Reading

Filed Under: Columns

We’ll Always Have Paris?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

I am a sucker for old magazines at tag sales. It is an illness, I think, buying titles from so long ago. But in my circumstance it is perhaps predictable. When the weekly magazine I brought to life expired, I felt as if twenty years of labor and passion had gone for naught. And these days I watch with trepidation as familiar brands such Gourmet disappear. (In all, 367 periodicals closed in 2009 alone.) So I collect and keep what I can…. Continue Reading

Filed Under: Columns

Urban Love

Posted on April 4, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

All good urban love stories begin on elevators and wind up in the opinion columns of daily newspapers, don’t they?

In this particular elevator at Capital Community College in early 2006, a female student noticed a young man she’d seen just once before.

She remembered his perceptive question at a program a few weeks earlier on the First Amendment. He’d pressed the guest speaker on the line between individual freedom and the need for national security. Who was this bold, bright guy?… Continue Reading

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The Philanthropist

Posted on April 4, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

In October 2010, John Foster’s daughter Julia celebrated her sweet 16 party in a way that must have surprised more than a few Fairfield County teens. As Julia’s dad points out, “A 16th birthday party around Wilton is varying levels of a big deal. You’d think that having one at a children’s museum would have a stigma attached to it.”… Continue Reading

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Song of Life

Posted on April 4, 2012 by larybloom • 0 Comments

Dressing rooms at the Ivoryton Playhouse have been beneath the proscenium since the theater opened in 1911. This is where Katharine Hepburn prepped for her first stage role (in 1931) and Marlon Brando for his last (in 1953). And where, in late May 2011, the actress Scotty Bloch took a dramatic turn…. Continue Reading

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