Commentary: Fair Trade
Lise’s piece in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:
“I don’t know the exact year I started to barter plants for coffee beans, but I know the exact reason. My pal Meg, who owns Mount Airy’s High Point Cafe, wanted more plants for her sloping Roxborough backyard than she had cash for, and I had hundreds of…” [more]
Dreamweaver Jack Lenor Larsen
In the September/October issue of GARDEN DESIGN magazine, Lise profiles the renown weaver and textile designer, Jack Lenor Larsen. Now in his 80s, Larsen—perhaps the original global citizen—founded and designed Longhouse Reserve, a wonderfully idiosyncratic, texturally rich, sculpture-infused public garden in East Hampton, New York. (Picture Dale Chihuly’s blown-glass underneath weeping Norway spruces, Gaston Lachaise’s bronze set against a curtain of European hornbeams, and a Buckmnister Fuller dome rising out of a lawn.) To read the article, click here. Check out the photo gallery, too. And for more information about Longhouse Reserve (by all means, plan a visit!), click here.
Essay: Pointing in the Right Direction
There’s been a clamoring (okay, one facebook request) for an online version of Lise’s essay about the joy of dog walking, which originally appeared in the June 2012 issue of Country Living magazine.
Not since her May 2000 LIFE magazine cover story on a super-preemie baby (who’s doing just fine, happily, all these years later) has Lise gotten so much mail from readers.
Some have sent photos (Liberty, Charlie, Lucky, and Belle pictured here); some have sent odes; all have sent the message that we who love dogs really, really love dogs. And the occasional cat.
In case you missed it the first time around, here’s the essay, Pointing in the Right Direction. Enjoy.
Work With Me Here, People
Want some help with your creative nonfiction project? Need another eye? A sounding board? Equal parts hand-holding and tough love? Come ‘n git it. In response to the throngs — multitudes, really — of former students clamoring for more of her wit and wisdom, Lise’s just signed on as an editorial mentor with the Creative Nonfiction Foundation’s Mentoring Program.
The foundation was founded in 1994 by Lee Gutkind (“godfather of creative nonfiction” and author of Almost Human: Making Robots Think and Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather). CNF’s objectives are to “provide a venue, the journal Creative Nonfiction, for high quality nonfiction prose (memoir, literary journalism, personal essay); to serve as the singular strongest voice of the genre, defining the ethics and parameters of the field; and to broaden the genre’s impact in the literary arena by providing an array of educational services and publishing activities.”
CNF’s Mentoring Program tailors this one-on-one arrangement to each writer’s specific situation, so that you can get what you need to move your manuscript or essay to the next level. To find out more, or to register for mentoring or one of CNF’s online writing courses, click here.
Who’s a Hip Hapa Homee?
This month’s Hip Hapa Homee interview features Lise talking about Pig Candy, Black, White, Other, how her parents met, and the perversity of her West Philadelphia childhood. She also talks about the craft of writing, including the curious realization that publishing one’s work requires a willingness to give up exclusive ownership of its meaning.
Hip Hapa Homee is a regular feature of the blog Watermelon Sushi World, which is “a forum for biracial, blended, interracially involved, mestizo, mixed-race, multiethnic, transracially adopted, and culture crossing folks worldwide.”
Pig Candy goes to Drexel
Pig Candy is the Drexel University Freshman Reading Program (FRP) selection for Summer 2012. It’s required reading for the entire incoming class, and come fall, there will be informal talks, master classes, lectures, Skyping, signings and ceremonial dinners. What more is there to say about this beyond… woo hoo!?!
push to publish conference: october 15, 2011
A daylong conference featuring the following:
* Speed date with the editors: Meet real editors who will review and offer feedback on your work (bring up to 5 pages of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction to review and discuss).
* Learn how to increase your chances of getting published.
* Discuss the new writing trends with professionals in the community
* Get great marketing and networking tips to break into the competitive world of publishing.
Keynote speaker is Steve Almond, and other area writers include Marie Lamba, Kelly Simmons, and Kathleen Volk Miller.
Rosemont College
1400 Montgomery Avenue
Rosemont, PA
610.527.0200
9am-5pm
For info and registration, click here
Trumpeting a Thai Elephant Refuge
Pick up the October issue of MORE magazine to read the long-awaited (by its author, at any rate) LF essay on being an eco-tourist (i.e., well-fed dung-slinger) at the extraordinary Elephant Nature Park, a little bit of super-sized heaven in northwest Thailand.
Writer Lise Funderburg: A Traveler, But Happy at Home
A well-written profile by one of my Paris American Academy Summer Creative Writing Workshop students, Courtney Sexton.
Click here to read.
Fried and True
(My most recent essay for the great site/app, GourmetLive.)
Every Saturday throughout spring and summer, at least one of the Howard sisters—Martha, Mary, Carrie, or Laverne—shows up on the town square of Monticello, the county seat of Jasper County, Georgia. The Howards preside over a table in the Chamber of Commerce–sponsored farmers’ market, an enterprise that once would have seemed superfluous, back in the days when almost everyone in Jasper was a farmer.
Under the slim shade of a statue honoring the Confederate fallen, the women sell handmade lye–and–lard soap, beans and vegetables from their brothers’ garden, and homemade chow–chow that comes in four degrees of burn: hot, hot–hot, hot–hot–hot, and then “put down your plate and run.” What the Howards are best known for, however, and what I’m hoping to unlock the secret of, is their fried pies: generous crescents of flaky pastry with fillings that often come from nearby trees or fields. In other words, what heaven on earth would be like if heaven had no words for cholesterol or obesity….
(To read the rest of this piece, click here.)
Upcoming Writing Workshop: “Strategies for Research”
As part of the 25th Annual Rutgers-Camden Summer Writers’ Conference (June 20 through June 29, 2011), I’ll be teaching a “Strategies for Research” Creative Writing Workshop on Tuesday, 6/28, from 10AM-12PM, and I’ll be doing a reading with Peter Trachtenberg at 1:00 PM the same day.
The conference is an intensive program of workshops and readings, featuring nationally-known writers, poets and editors including Robin Hemley, Ken Kalfus, Danielle Evans, and Jane Bernstein. The workshops, lectures and lunch meetings are open to both Rutgers students and the community, though some prior workshop or professional experience is required.
For a full schedule of events, click here. workshop
Vote for Black, White, Other
For the upcoming Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, Black, White, Other has been nominated as one of the best representations of the mixed-race experience in films and literature. Winners will be announced at the Festival June 11, 2011 as part of the Loving Prize Presentation and Mixed Unplugged, the popular live performance with comedians, musicians, spoken word artists, and storytellers. Vote now! Votes will be accepted through May 1, 2011.
Coming Soon: Black, White, Other in an ebook format!
With a new forward and special links…also a new cover, to be designed by one Jason Howard, WHQ’s resident X-HTML expert.
Chestnut Hill Book Festival
This Saturday afternoon, I’ll be doing some reading (from Pig Candy), some talking (about the writing life), some signing of books. Click here for a full schedule of the weekend’s events, which include appearances from Solomon Jones, The Chestnut Hill Historical Society, and The Liars Club
Saturday, July 10, 2010
2:00 PM upstairs at Rollers
8142 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
Pig Candy Reading with poet Lynn Levin!
A reading by Lynn Levin and Lise Funderburg
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
Kelly Writers House
University of Pennsylvania
3805 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA
co-sponsored by: Creative Writing
Poet, writer, and translator, Lynn Levin is the author of three collections of poems, Fair Creatures of an Hour (2009), Imaginarium (2005)/, and A Few Questions about Paradise (2000), all published by Loonfeather Press. Imaginarium was a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. Lynn Levin’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Washington Square Review, 5 AM, Peregrine, and Boulevard. She teaches creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and at Drexel University, where she also produces the award-winning TV show, The Drexel InterView.
Pig Candy Speed Reading — See it now!
Six minutes. Three Excerpts. Can’t get much better than that. This video is from a recent 6-person reading at Big Blue Marble Bookstore in the beautiful Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia, brought to you by Philadelphia Stories’ PS Reads series. Fellow readers: Christine Weiser, Nathan Long, Brian Patrick Heston, David Sanders, Colleen Baranich, and Marc Schuster. Click here for video.
Unbelievably Cute Button Giveaway
And by “cute” we mean the buttons, not the giveaway. Although it is clever. If your book group chooses Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home as one of its next reads, our people will send your people enough of these little wamma jammas for every member. Send in name of club, month of selection, contact address, and number of buttons needed. Limited time offer while supplies last. Or until postage rates go up again.
Yet another bestseller list!
That’s right. Pig Candy is now officially a bestseller among the Flourtown Swim Club’s morning water aerobics class, thanks to the marketing genius of Maggie Funderburg (aka, “Mom”).
Pig Candy Hits the Bestseller List!
After a BBQ-filled week of touring great indie bookstores in North Carolina, Pig Candy made it to the SIBA Bestseller List.
Keynote Speech at upcoming 10/17 Push to Publish Conference
Philadelphia Stories is hosting Push to Publish 2009: Strategies and Techniques to Get Your Work in Print and Online at Rosemont College, Rosemont, PA on October 17, 2009, 9 am to 5 pm. Lise Funderburg gives the conference’s kickoff speech. To see a profile of Lise on PS’s website, click here.
September 15: Pig Candy Reading at Chemical Rd. Barnes & Noble Tonight
At 7:30 tonight, Lise Funderburg will lead a discussion and sign books at the Chemical Road Barnes & Noble in Plymouth Meeting, PA. While she can’t guarantee the return of the crazy man who interrupted her last reading by asking, “Do you plan to read the whole book? Because I have a comment to make,” she can guarantee that the bookstore’s mall also has a Ross Dress for Less, a Target, a PetSmart, an Old Navy, a Lowe’s, and a Best Buy. She’s just saying.
Pig Candy on About.com
In her 8/1/09 review, hospice and palliative care nurse Angela Morrow describes Pig Candy as “a beautifully told story that is as much about completing relationships as it is about the beauty of the rural Georgia landscape and its people…. [Funderburg's] story reminds us that there is yet much to do as one nears the end of life.”
Pig Candy on Bukisa.com!
A new review just went up on Bukisa.com, in which member CarlaPW writes: “Funderburg masterfully brings a small Southern community to life through not only her father’s eyes but hers as well – northern eyes, informed and perhaps prejudiced by the painful experiences of an older generation, yet curious and open to fully seeing what it is about the people, culture (food plays a major role, as the title promises) and environment that soothes her father so.” Click here to read full review.
Bookalicious calls Pig Candy “a real gem.”
From the Canadian YummyMummy Club website. website Full review here.
THE SILVER PLANET
Here’s a recent review on www.silverplanet.com, an interesting boomer women’s site. Lots to explore on these pages.