jenny feldman

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November 1, 2011 by admin

FREE BOOK OFFER AT THE END OF THIS BLOG ENTRY!

Good morning! I’ve started my Day 1 of NaNoWriMo and have, so far, about 2,200 words for the day. I’m hoping to hit 5,000 today to get rolling. There are a few days this month where it will be tough to get in a good word count, so I’m trying to start out with a full head of steam. Good luck and happy writing to those of you who are participating!

I’ve been so busy with The Foreign Language of Friends that I don’t always tend properly to another wonderful project of mine. In 2009 I edited Patchwork & Ornament: A Woman’s Journey of Life, Love, and Art by Jeanette Feldman (my late mother-in-law). Originally I had planned to put Patchwork together just for the family, but the longer I worked on it, the more I felt that others might enjoy it, too.

Patchwork went on to win an Indie Excellence Award for Best Memoir of 2010. Feathered Quill and Midwest Book Reviews gave it five stars on Amazon. But it is the comments we receive from individuals who read it that mean the most. As Jenny tells the story of her life in bite-sized essays, poems, and stories, readers reflect on their own lives. Somehow, Jenny’s warmth shines through, and readers feel as though they are having a conversation with her, as opposed to just reading someone else’s life story. Originally, I had planned to make the book just for the family, but I felt its magic as I worked on it, convinced that others could relate to her story.

Briefly, Jenny grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. In the South Bronx, where she lived, there was little hope for the future, but through the power of art, she gained a broader perspective on the world — one that allowed her to transcend poverty, even though she would never realize commercial success as an artist. Patchwork & Ornament includes several full-color photographs of her work.

Here’s an excerpt, from which the title is derived. Enjoy! A FREE BOOK OFFER FOLLOWS THIS EXCERPT!

Patchwork and Ornament
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Why are your artworks so ornamented, when you love cubist and minimalist art?

Shopping Bag — One of many homemade shopping bags - a piece of art on its own

When asked this question I was intrigued and decided to write about it to clarify my answer to myself. I found the answer in my early childhood, from the lives of my grandmother and mother and from the apartments they lived in and decorated.

My aunt, my uncle, their son, and my grandmother lived in a three-room apartment on Freeman Street in the Bronx. There was one bedroom, another room that acted as a dining room/bedroom for my grandmother, and a kitchen with an eating area where the family actually ate their meals.

The floor in each room was covered with printed linoleum, each in a different pattern with no attempt to match or to complement the other. The floors needed to be covered and covered cheaply, and that was that.

The dining room made the biggest impact on me. That was where our family would sit together for holidays or on our infrequent social visits. The linoleum floor in the dining room resembled a version of a Persian rug, with deep reds and blues. My aunt and grandmother made curtains from a heavy, textured cotton called cretonne that was printed with palm trees, exotic tropical flowers and fruits. The cushions on the dining room chairs were each made of different fabrics and colors. Again, nothing matched anything else in the room.

Dishes in the china cabinet were parts of sets, piled together in random fashion. The table was large and covered in a white cloth embroidered in the center and edged with machine crochet lace. A cut crystal bowl filled with fruit sat on the sideboard, and a small beveled glass mirror hung at a height that reflected no one’s face. One would need to twist and bend in order to achieve such a glimpse. This was a room put together in bits and pieces over a period of time by people who did not care one iota about the way anything looked. They were poor immigrants struggling to survive in the cold depths of the Great Depression. They put together a home using what was at hand and went to second-hand stores for the rest.

Collage — Many of Jenny's artwork pieces had a "collage" look to them.

My grandmother was another strong influence. An Orthodox Jew, she wore a proscribed shaitl, or wig, of what looked like red horsehair. A more unattractive wig has yet to be designed. She made dresses for herself styled like muumuus, with a round neck, long sleeves without cuffs, and the hem just short of floor length. She wore a white apron that covered her almost completely from one hip to the other and was tied around the waist. As parts wore through, she patched it with any fabric at hand. She would do the same to the bosom of her dress when her heavy breasts wore the material to shreds. She wore these patched clothes anywhere at all, whether shopping the outdoor markets on Jennings Street or visiting us.

My mother, whose financial situation was much more precarious than my grandmother’s, would never wear patched clothes, never. Bitterly ashamed of her status in life, she tolerated neither raggedness nor patches. She would alter clothes, setting a new waistband into a dress or skirt to lengthen it, or making a shirt from a too-short dress, or attaching a wide velvet border to a coat when the longer look came into fashion. She made curtains, too, comforter covers, tablecloths edged with printed ruffles and seat cushions to match, and most of our clothes and doll clothes from scraps.

I was exposed to cubist and abstract art at Cooper Union, which gave me a different perspective from my influence at home. For a time I restricted myself to the severity and discipline of such art. I loved it. I found peace and order in the strictures of abstract art. At that time, I needed those elements to help structure my life.

Still, looking at great paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the Museum of Modern Art opened me to possibilities in combining textures and colors. And of course, the streets and buildings of Manhattan provided the greatest design class of all. Signage, posters, billboards, shop windows, people dressed in every fashion possible, cars, buses, vendors on street corners; I lived, worked, and studied in a vast collage environment.

As time passed, my work and my life became more dense and complex. More ornament, more richness became evident in the work, and storytelling, which has always been pleasurable to me, became important to the visual work. Instead of fighting and trying to work back into abstract or minimalist art, I went towards the new development, using ornament as narrative.
I see in the work I do, in the manner I have furnished our home, the effects of all these experiences. My childhood world of family influences grew to include, as in the manner a collage is made, layers built up from the complexities of my life, one over the other revealing like pentimento, ghosts of previous experiences.

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Thoughts from 2011 #WLTcon

June 15, 2011 by admin

The Writers’ League of Texas held its annual Agents and Editors conference this past weekend in Austin, Texas. I, along with a few hundred of my new best friends, made the trek to attend workshops, make new friends, and pitch to agents. This was my second conference; I attended two years ago. In those two years, a lot has changed!

Much of the focus has moved to social media as a way of branding and marketing a writer’s work. A “tweet-up” allowed attendees to tweet their questions about publishing, and I learned that many agents LOVE Twitter. I’m still not sure about it, but if the agents are using it and sharing publishing information, I’m happy to dive in. Previously, my tweets were occasional, uncertain, and inconsistent. Now, I’m in the know–at least a little bit! I’m now following several attendees, including said agents, and it’s a great way to get information about books, blogs, agents, and writing workshops.

When I attended two years ago, I was trying to decide if I wanted to publish Patchwork and Ornament traditionally or independently. I am glad I chose the latter because it allowed me to print the book before my father-in-law died, allowing him to see and feel the book, read the reviews, and watch it win an Indie Excellence award. I made a fundamental mistake, though, in not hiring a PR service to help me market the book.

When I published When a Grandchild Dies, I had a built-in audience. Between Amazon and Centering Corporation, a publisher and seller of bereavement books, my first self-publishing efforts were more successful than many, and I took it for granted that I had some PR skills. However, Patchwork has not fared as well. Now, having attended WLTcon, I have some leads on PR firms that can help me market my current project and perhaps resurrect Patchwork. These firms work specifically with authors and small publishers, so I will look into them further now that I am home.

I had my first-ever pitch session with Amy Burkhardt of Kimberley Cameron & Associates. Amy represented The Safe Food Handbook by Heli Perrett, where I learned never to eat raw sprouts–just in time to hear about the German e. coli outbreak attributed to raw sprouts. But I digress. The agency also represents women’s fiction, including Free to a Good Home by Eve Marie Mont, which I loved. Amy comes across as reserved and quiet, which helped put me at ease, or at least as at ease as was possible. The good news? She asked for a partial manuscript! Read the submission guidelines, she advised me, and I heard this message frequently throughout the weekend. Agents will not review manuscripts where the author could not be bothered to read the guidelines.

The best part of the conference, other than hanging with other writers, was the optimism of those representing the industry. Times are tough, and it’s harder to sell books these days, but a lot of dedicated people are keeping the faith and working hard. Their passion remains strong, and for that I am grateful.

So, What Else Do You Do?

May 25, 2011 by admin

My late mother-in-law, Jenny Feldman, left behind an extensive body of artwork that she made long after she gave up the dream of getting recognition as an artist. Even when her hands hurt too much to make large works, she adapted by making little spiral-bound books of drawings. At some point in her life, though, she tired of what she called the “fine arts slog” of promoting her work and instead, made art that pleased her. Some of that artwork covers our walls, and we are proud to show off our Jenny Feldman Originals.

I shared her writings in Patchwork and Ornament: A Woman’s Journey of Life, Love, and Art, in part because I loved her, in part because I found her writing compelling, and perhaps, to a larger degree, because I wanted her to have some of the recognition that eluded her in life. I wanted that for her because I want that for me. Perhaps that isn’t the highest and best motive, but I think any writer or artist would understand.

Sitting each day at my computer, I write new work and polish existing work, knowing that much of what I do may never see the light of day. My work is less visible than Jenny’s, stored on computers and websites, but it’s a body of work that continues to grow. Will it sell? I don’t know. I will do what I can to make it so. I will make the best work I can and, if I don’t find a publisher, will put it online as e-books and podcasts in hopes of building an audience.

Whenever I meet someone knew, and they ask me what I do, I explain that I’m a writer. They always ask, “What do you write?” closely followed by, “And what else do you do?” When I went to an office every day, miserable though I was, no one ever asked me “what else do you do?” They accepted that I had a full-time job. Well, I work harder as a writer than I ever did on the job. Each morning I get up and work, writing and polishing. I contribute and submit to a critique group. I read writing books. I read endless novels, some of them not very good, to learn my craft. I blog to get in more writing practice. My husband, a playwright when he isn’t writing computer programs, understands. Writing is a profession and a practice, but for many of us, the work that we do goes unnoticed, even by family and friends.

So why do it, if there is, for most writers, little respect or money involved? What keeps us going when we have little to show for our efforts, including recognition of those efforts?

The other day I received a note from a grandmother in Massachusetts ordering a copy of When a Grandchild Dies. Her granddaughter, she explained, died at six months, and would I please send her a copy of the book? I knew that though my audience is small, I have felt much affection for those grandparents who sent me notes and told me their stories. People have told me that they passed the book around in their family so everyone could read it, and it helped them get through the pain. These grandparents may never realize how often their outreach to me has pulled me from a writer’s funk.

Today I pulled out a notebook from a novel writing class I attended a few years ago, and some loose pages fell out. When I looked at them, they were lists of possible agents, more people to research and query. Despite my moments of discouragement, I still felt hope when I saw the names. I took it as a message from my teacher, and perhaps a greater teacher, not to give up. Publication may never happen, but what if it didn’t only because I didn’t try hard enough? I don’t have enough rejections to say that I’m done.

Mostly, though, I write because that’s what I do. That is how I was hooked up from the beginning of my life, though it took decades for me to understand this. I feel better. I’m less cranky and more loving with my family. I feel alive. Maybe no one will ever know my characters, but I know them and love them as though they were real people. I laugh with them, weep with them, and sometimes get angry with them, but I can’t wait to get together with them when I get up in the morning. When I fall asleep at night, I ask questions about the story so that my mind can work in my sleep to come up with answers to plot dilemmas.

This morning I finished yet another draft of Change of Plans. Two weeks from Friday, I attend an Agents Conference, and I will share my novel, and my beloved characters, with an agent. I feel shy and afraid, but I know these women, these imaginary friends, inside and out. I will tell their stories in the hopes that the agent will agree that others will love them like I do. And, if I don’t get the message across, I have these lists of agents that fell onto my feet this morning. Hope springs eternal!

Reconnecting to the Blog

March 8, 2011 by admin

Author Sherman Alexie wrote that the more words you put in your blog, the less words you’re putting into your novel. I paraphrase, I’m sure, but that was the gist of it. He’s right, but I think I’ve taken his advice a tad too far, having disappeared from this blog for several months. I spent that time writing a novel, tentatively titled Change of Plans, which only took six months to draft versus 20 years for Blood and Loam, which I continue to revise. Now it’s time for a little balance. Yes, Sherman, I believe you, but I’m in the revision phase, and blogging allows me to continue to write without making heavy commitments to a new project. I need to write every day, or I get cranky. So there.

I first encountered Alexie’s work many years ago in an independent bookshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, a collection of connected short stories that would later appear in movie form in Smoke Signals, literally fell on my head. That got my attention. Later, after reading other works by him, I heard him speak in Houston and stuttered and stammered as I stood in front of him for a book signing. Given our long literary relationship, then, when I read his comment about blogging I decided to heed his advice.

Besides, I needed time to figure out what this blog is about. I wrote about writing and travel, but the garden had started to take over, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Before 2010 I couldn’t tell you a thing about gardening, and suddenly my passion for the subject threatened to hijack this blog and turn it into something very different from what I had intended.

I also needed to step away from the whole blogging as marketing thing. Yes, I sell books, and I won’t turn anyone down who wants to buy one, but more than anything I want to connect with others, writers or not, who may have an interest in what I have to say. I write because I breathe, whether or not anything sells, and I hope not to stop writing until I stop breathing.

The net result of my pondering is that I have moved my gardening thoughts to a new blog, Art of the Garden (artofthegarden.wordpress.com). Also, if I feel the need to write about yoga, which I do from time to time, I’m putting those musings on the YogaHub.com website. If you are into yoga, check them out for some cool online yoga programs.

As I move forward into 2011, I am seeking agent representation for at least one of the novels, maybe two. I’ll share those adventures, along with some upcoming fun stuff: a literary tour of Massachusetts in April, and a writing retreat in Vermont in May. I’ll introduce the characters in Change of Plans and share stories of how this book developed and what I see for its future. I’ll talk about what’s going on at She Writes, where I’ve increased my involvement. I’ll share details of the annual Writers’ League of Texas Agents and Editors conference. I’m currently working on the text for a yoga relaxation recording that I’ll offer for free to anyone who is stressed out. In other words, there’s no shortage of possibilities as to what I’ll write about here, and the year is just getting started!

It’s great to be back. Thanks, Sherman, for getting me to write a novel. I’ll take it from here.

Revealing the Hidden Female

July 8, 2010 by admin

Kayaking, canoeing, hiking: just another day on the island of Vancouver, where we recently spent several days. We spent most of that time on the wild Pacific edges, or, as some call it, the Graveyard of the Pacific, where rogue waves and sudden storms have smashed ships and killed many in the process. Our experience, was far less dramatic, thankfully, though we did spend a few terrifying moments moving over open water in our little kayak, fighting the current that wanted to pull us out to sea. Awed by the raw beauty of the place, I began to plan future visits even before we left. I wanted to “crack the code” on hiking there, because our tour books offered little information.

When I travel, I love to find good stories about a place, information that gives more flavor than facts, that tells me of its heart and soul. As I dug around, I found pay dirt with my discovery of two powerful women: Cougar Annie and Emily Carr. Well known and revered in western Canada, they were completely unfamiliar to me. So, while I have come late to their party, I am no less passionate about them than the Canadians who keep their memories alive.

Cougar Annie made her living selling the bulbs and seeds from a wild, chaotic garden that she grew. She ran a few other side businesses as well, survived four husbands, and raised eleven children. She gained her colorful monicker after shooting a number of cougars that threatened her livestock, also earning bounties on several of her kills. I should mention as an aside that one of her husbands died by shooting himself in the leg while cleaning his gun–obviously Cougar Annie demonstrated a bit more skill! She lived to age 97, ultimately spending 65 years on her beloved island. Her garden continues to this day, now maintained by environmental and First Nations organizations who limit visitors to protect it.

Emily Carr grew up in Victoria, the daughter of British parents. She demonstrated artistic skill at an early age, which her parents encouraged. Later, she visited several native tribes, sketching the people and totem poles, in part, to preserve them, as she saw native ways waning and wanted to capture them for all time. At the time, female artists were rare, and Carr endured criticism for her “strange,” expressionistic work. She lived a lonely life, even giving up art for several years to run a boarding house. Locals saw her as strange, and success arrived late in her life. In the midst of this new-found fame, she had a heart attack and was forced by doctors to stop painting. Fortunately for us, she turned to writing as a creative outlet, publishing several books in her 70s, and more posthumously. From her we hear stories of the natives she lived with, of life in Victoria as it transitioned to a modern city, and more.

Both of these women lived at a time when women weren’t supposed to be strong, powerful, or independent–and yet, I had never heard of them before now. Yes, as a writer I have read the classics from female authors, such as Jane Austin, Louisa May Alcott, and the Bronte sisters–all of whom led lives with the same independent spirit of Cougar Annie and Emily Carr. Still, sometimes I feel that we know too little of women such as these. I’m sure there were many more, anonymous women whose strength led families, who worked hard, and who created. Having just printed Patchwork and Ornament by my late mother-in-law, Jenny Feldman, I can attest that many have created art and writings that the world will never see.

For me, finally coming into my own at midlife, these women shine a light on my path, inviting me to join them in strength, power, and the joy of creativity. Writing can be a lonely and discouraging avocation, and meeting Cougar Annie and Emily Carr, I feel less alone. I remember that my job is to create with passion and joy, regardless of the outcome. They nudge me to let myself express a more outrageous side–to let those waves crash to the shore without fear, to allow the storms to well up and, at times, overcome, and to keep paddling my inner kayak toward the islands, not allowing the sea to sweep me away, but still letting it bounce me around a bit.

Tale of Two Broccoli

April 13, 2010 by admin

A fledgling gardener, I am a wide-eyed kid on a daily basis as I watch my garden grow. Yes, the cantaloupe seeds sprouted, even when I was sure they wouldn’t. I picked more than two dozen baby lemons, their tart scent clinging to my fingers, because the precocious tree they came from is too young–it needs to put its energy into roots, leaves, and branches. My grape plants, purchased during a freeze, unplanted for weeks due to a move, finally sprouted. In fact, I’m amazed at the plants and trees, so sad after a series of rare Houston freezes, that now produce new growth, new hope, and a tenacity I wish I had.

I’ve learned that gardening, like life, requires that I accept a certain amount of mystery. Take, for example, my broccoli. Please. Since I’m new at this, I purchased four plants, all from the same nursery, all about the same size, and I cared for them exactly the same way. One of them went crazy and has become the Scary Mutant Broccoli Plant in the garden. We didn’t know if we were ever going to get the actual vegetable, or if the plant instead was destined to become another tree in the back yard. The first head is finally growing, and I’m thinking I may not need to get out a ladder to harvest it. SMBP threatens to overshadow my golden sweet peppers, though they seem to hold their own, tolerating their bully neighbor.

While SMBP threatened to take over the entire garden, two other plants, perhaps intimidated, rolled over and died. I had watered, I had fed them rich, organic fertilizer, I had mulched, and yet they couldn’t hold on.

Which leaves, of course, one last broccoli plant, and this one intrigues me. It’s little, having followed in the path of its deceased siblings, but it didn’t die. In fact, it bravely boasts a few new leaves. It will never match the ferocity of SMBP, but maybe, just maybe, it can grow. I have lowered my expectations. You don’t have to produce any fruit, just don’t die, please. Hang in there, and let’s see where this can go.

My writing, my characters, tend to resemble the mystery of my two broccoli. A new story is emerging, and with it a character, Claire, who has seized the story and made it her own. Yes, she says, I know you’re making an ensemble cast, but one of us has to be in charge, and it’s going to be me. My other characters, who are softer and less dominant, struggle to survive. Still, I think we’re going to get a nice harvest from this story. It feels as though I can hear what it needs from me, and I am stronger in my commitment than I used to be. I feed, I water, I sing to it, and maybe it will grow.

Less successful are Blood and Loam and Patchwork. A completed, harvested book, Patchwork struggles to find an audience, and I have had to admit that even the most beautiful fruit rots when no one eats it. Granted, there is much more I can do, and I am stubborn enough to keep finding ways to let people know it exists, and that it’s worth purchasing.

B&L has a different problem: it doesn’t fit in with the rest of my writing garden. I have made halfhearted attempts to find an agent for it, but truth is, I don’t want to be known for this work. It’s too disturbing, too violent, too much at odds with what I want to contribute to the world. It is a pesky invader, a plant I can’t remove. I haven’t given up on this one, though, either. Once I finish a draft of the new novel, I’m going to dig up B&L by the roots and replant it. I think I know a different way of telling the story, one that retains the drama without requiring that I compromise who I am in order to sell a few books.

One never knows what the garden will actually do. All we can do is plant, feed, water, and observe. Listen in the stillness to what the plants need to thrive. Keep the weeds pulled. Invite the butterflies, the hummingbirds, bats, and bees, but let them come in their own time, when the milkweed expands and blooms. Know that sometimes, the plants will die, while other times, they will awe us with their capacity to survive. And the fruits? Those are the extras, a byproduct of the act of sowing.