As told to the Mayborn Nonfiction Conference

By Peggy | July 21, 2013 |

I went. I heard. I tweeted what resonated most with me.

  • We’re in it – Skip Hollandsworth, all about “Bernie”
  • This is a story you don’t get in the way of – Skip Hollandsworth
  • Only when readers feel will they begin to think it through – Jeff Guinn
  • Unconventional warfare is a cancer we pour in and once we do that, it’s hard to control – Tony Schwalm, The Guerrilla Factory
  • There are no shortcuts in the process of owning your material – Jim Hornfischer
  • OH at : “Because the person who comes back is not the person who left” – what migration/immigration and military memoir share
  • Truth and courage – Alfredo Corchado, Reyna Grande
  • I look for the voice, the voice that will carry it – agent Bonnie Nadell, on book proposals
  • In democracy no decision is more profound than war and peace – Rick Atkinson
  • In good narrative history, there is no foreseeable future – Rick Atkinson
  • Public figures deserve their complexity – Kevin Merida
  • I was always trying to write about this cosmic wrong – Donna Britt
  • I said everything except this is a story about the healing power of love – Kelly Benham
  • Storytelling can be a healing process, a wounding process – Tom Huang
  • I probably should’ve run – Hugh Aynesworth, JFK eyewitness
  • JFK 50 years later. Here’s a story from a Dallas reporter who was there http://t.co/05iCF8ynwy
  • Love favors the prepared heart. – John Valliant
  • I spent a year writing a pitch letter. Front-loading works well – John Valliant
  • In memoir writing, there are ways to take a powerful memory and nail down the corners – Amanda Bennett
  • It was, in the end, a love story – Amanda Bennett
  • A photo can be simultaneously clear in its storytelling ability and confusing – Paul Hendrickson
  • Westword’s Alan Prendergast tells the tribe that the original new journalists used archival research more than they let on.
  • In those silences that follow your questions, you must use your imagination as well as your research to understand – Helen Benedict
  • Editors see the holes in the logic that you can’t – Susan Orlean
  • It’s just not the until Bill Marvel asks a question
  • Archives have the good stuff; and can be more intimate than the interview – Susan Orlean
  • There is a radiant quality to a story that has that longer timeline – Susan Orlean
  • @LowellMBrown Yes. Chickens are very popular in the twitterverse
  • To start on twitter, tweet about your chickens  – Susan Orlean

You can follow me at @phwolfeDRC. Or find more searching . Or read Michael Merschel’s story (paywall) which underscores that, if you went, you could not continue to think that journalists are “heartless, self-centered or careless.” We showed, amply, that we have heart.

 

Posted in Writing and tagged

The sibling experience

By Peggy | July 19, 2013 |

I didn’t tackle the sibling experience in my book about the first few years of Sam’s life. I didn’t feel it was my story to tell.

Many siblings of people with autism are starting to tell their stories. Paige and, especially, Michael enjoyed one book I picked up for them several years ago, The Ride Together. Paige wrote an essay for her nonfiction class at the University of Iowa that she will workshop at the Mayborn conference.

This young man shared his heartwarming story on YouTube.

Paige’s favorite lines:

“They thought he reached his fullest potential. He proved them wrong.”

“I play the big brother in the way I look out for him, but I still look up to him.”

Posted in love, Uncategorized, Writing

Try the front row

By Peggy | July 15, 2013 |

The kids and I sat behind a family with three wiggly boys at Mass this morning. It didn’t take long for Michael, now a coach at Easter Seals, to notice that the youngest one was likely on the spectrum. I noticed, too, and remembered when my children could be that wiggly.

I thought for a moment about tapping the mom on the shoulder and offering her a tip, but then I remembered how I felt about advice from well-meaning strangers and kept my thoughts to myself.

Our church has Mass in the round. The altar is in the center of the room. It provides a good view for everyone, if you’re a grown-up. If you sit in the back, whether at St. Philip’s or at a church with a traditional layout, your kids seen only all the big people around you.  But if you sit in the first row — and you have about six chances with a church in the round — all of the proceedings unfold right in front of you.

church_int_small

Mark had a bold idea when our church, St. Philip the Apostle in Lewisville, opened its new worship space in 1997. We wouldn’t sit in the back. We would sit right up front. If the kids wiggled, they would wiggle right onto the floor. And, they could see.

The first couple of times were a little scary. But it worked. The kids actually wiggled less because they could see what was going on. And, when they came back from children’s liturgy, they didn’t have to work too hard to remember where Mark and I were sitting because they only needed to scan the front rows.

I can’t remember when we realized the kids were calm enough that we could sit in other spots. But I do remember we started picking spots that would let Sam avoid the incense during the Gospel reading. He would slip out into the narthex and then slip back in at the end of the Homily, when it was done smoking so much. Eventually, we found a spot where the smell wasn’t as strong and we sat there so he could stay all the way through the service.

On the way home, as we shared our observations of the new Family Wiggly, I asked the kids if they could remember sitting in the front row and whether they liked it better. Could they see better? Did they know we did it so they wouldn’t wiggle so much? None of them could remember a bit of it.

Sam did remind us however, that while it may have been years since we’ve sat in a front row, we did for Mark’s funeral Mass.

Amen to that, Sam. Amen.

Posted in problem-solving, social life, What Sam says

Words My Dog Knows

By Peggy | July 13, 2013 |

I have a Blue Lacy dog named Gus:
GusontherunHe will be 12 years old this year. Over the years, he has learned many words and phrases. He understands basic commands such as come, sit, stay, and down, of course. But let’s explore some of the more interesting words Gus knows.

Uh-oh. Gus knows when this is uttered in the kitchen to come a-running because something delicious just fell on the floor. Say it in another room and he ignores you.

Time for toothbrush. He follows you to the pantry for those chews that ostensibly clean his teeth.

Squirrel. Nothing more needs to be said.

Crow. Like squirrel, little more needs to be said, but he looks up in the sky.

Time for work. He barks at you until get your boots on. Same goes for, let’s get the paper, or walk, or outside, or take the trash up. 

Tractor. Sam never says a word, but Gus knows when he puts in the ear protectors, it’s time to bark because the 2N is heading out into the orchard.

Get ’em up. This was very useful when we had more livestock here, for example, when Michael’s cashmere goats would get out of their pen or the chickens needed to be hustled back in the coop. In 2005, I thought about dispatching him to the Texas Legislature when they made one of many messes they’ve made with school financing at the same time they declared his breed the official state dog.

Given what’s going on in Austin this week, I may yet send him down there.

Get ’em up, Gus.

Posted in language, Uncategorized, Writing

Venison steaks

By Peggy | July 7, 2013 |

Another favorite venison recipe, as promised, from Chili, two ways.

The first thing Mark often cooked after a successful hunting trip was the venison backstrap, or tenderloin. I know some people soak the meat in buttermilk or wine to smooth out any gaminess that might be in the meat, but Mark rarely did that.

Instead, he would cut the meat on the diagonal into small medallions and dredge them in flour that was seasoned with salt and pepper, fry it in a bit of cooking oil and then serve it up with mustard. Pretty delicious, just like that.

Sometime ago, I stumbled across a recipe that took advantage of the little bits left behind in the fry pan that made a nice sauce, and that’s the way we’ve served it since.

If you want to make the sauce, choose a cast-iron pan and olive oil for frying the venison — a scant tablespoon per pound of meat. After removing the meat from the fry pan (keep it warm on a platter nearby), pour about a 1/2 cup of stock into the pan to pull up all the bits. With the heat on very low (so you don’t curdle the sauce), add a teaspoon each of dijon mustard and horseradish, and 2 tablespoons of Greek-style yogurt. When it’s hot, plate the steaks and pour the sauce over.

Posted in recipes, Uncategorized