Nana's Garden

     

     “Give it some Miracle Grow. That’s what I do.”

     That was my Nana’s gardening advice.

     As a kid, I was curious about my grandmother’s penchant for growing fruits and vegetables. Her row house in downtown Pittsburgh had a tiny backyard with no grass. Instead, practically every inch was devoted to growing tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, green beans, zucchini, basil, and rose bushes. She even had a grape arbor that twined and tangled above the slim gravel parking space out back. This little organic Eden didn’t make any sense to me. It sprouted in the center of what was then a grimy city, where morning announced itself with steamy steel mill smog and afternoon haze smelled like freshly poured pavement. The garden didn’t fit in.

     But I loved it.

     I loved climbing up to the grape vine with my little brother. We’d spend what seemed like hours searching for sweet fruit, daring each other to eat the tiny unripe pellets that we knew would make our bellies hurt. By September, most of the wine grapes were large and pale green, and bursting with a surprising sweetness. I was too young to remember whether or not my grandfather used these grapes to make his homemade wine every year. I do remember that my grandmother later used his wine as salad vinegar.

     I loved the smell of tomatoes on the vine. The pungent spice of the leaves and stems, the leathery smoothness of the fruit. My grandmother had to remind me several times a day not to pick the green tomatoes. They were so tempting!  A child can learn patience through the slow reddening of a tomato, and what sweet reward to those who master the art of waiting.

     I loved snapping the ends off of freshly picked beans. Sitting at the kitchen table with my Nana and a gaggle of neighborhood women. Their broken English chatter was background noise to the click and pop of vegetables being readied and tossed into a large plastic bowl.  Nana would later dress the velvety beans with garlic, green olive oil, and a little salt. They didn’t last long. Green bean salad was a family favorite in late summer.

     After my grandmother died, I visited the place where she was raised in the South of Italy. I walked the crag of road to see the dilapidated rubble that was once her home. Her family had had no running water. No electricity.

     But they’d had a garden and a farm. And for this, they’d eaten like kings.

     Most of the mountain towns in Calabria are still awash in poverty, but their gardens are lush. Tomatoes dry atop milk crates that sit on broken cement steps. Baskets of fat eggplants and zucchini color the ochre stone stairwells in between dark tenements with dented doorways. The contrast is stark, but it helped me make sense of my grandmother’s little patch of green paradise in downtown Pittsburgh. 

     As a child in the mountains of Calabria, she’d had practically nothing. As an adult in the “land of milk and honey,” she still struggled. Raising seven children in a tiny house on her husband’s meager salary was not an easy feat. She did it though, and the family that has bloomed from the passionate work of her heart is even more beautiful than the garden she tended so carefully with her wrinkled fingers. I know she is smiling down from Heaven at the crazy lot of us. From seven children, she now has thirteen grandkids and seven great grandkids. When we are all together, we twine and tangle around each other like the grapevines upon which my brother and I once played. Some of us are spicy, and some are sweet, and when tossed together, we are a colorful bunch. We love each other, because she loved us enough to tend first to family. She was an amazing gardener.

     Of plants and of people.

     A miracle grower, of sorts.

     I can only pray that I’ve inherited just a smidge of her green thumb.

     I have my own garden now. I’ve planted some of the same things my grandmother did. I’ve also tried a few new veggies, like Brussels sprouts. They’re doing okay, after a bit of a war with cabbage worms that I believe I’ve won. I also accidentally planted a pumpkin plant that I thought was a zucchini. It’s growing, although the space is far too small. It’s twining and vining into my grass, and there are little green pumpkins peeking out from some of the flowers. My kids are thrilled to be able to grow their own Halloween jack o’ lanterns. Hopefully, the pumpkins keep getting bigger and eventually turn orange.

     I’ll try some Miracle Grow.

     After all, that’s what she would have done.

NOT A ZUCCHINI PLANT... SNICKER

The Writer's Backstory - Tanushree Ghosh

Happy July! As spring has morphed into a cool,wet summer here in Pittsburgh, I have found myself quite enveloped in family time, including birthday celebrations and mini vacations.  I've been taking advantage of the snippets of warmth and sunshine by floating around in our swimming pool.     Several beautiful books have found their way onto my Kindle. And yes, I have carved out a few minutes here and there to write.

Seeking quiet within the noise of summer break is like searching for a lost diamond earring in the pool. Precious writing time is elusive. Still, I try to shut out the slap of the kids' flip-flops as they travel through the halls. I grab hold of  moments in between endless snack-making and camp-driving, even if it's only enough time to scribble (or tap) some notes into my iPhone. Memories of an inspiring three-day writers conference in New York City urge me forward in pursuit of my dreams.

Months after the Algonkian NY Pitch conference, the writers of group C are beginning to see the fruits of our labors. Some of us are on our way to finding the right agent to represent our writing. Others continue to edit and plug away on our manuscripts, utilizing the professional advice and education we received at the conference in March. Today, I am excited to introduce another talented Algonkian writer - Tanushree Ghosh, who has recently been hired to write for Huffington Post! Congratulations Tanu!

Currently working for Intel Corporation as an engineer and engineering manager, Tanu is a mother, an activist, an artist and a writer.  Her education has been primarily in the STEM fields (She has a PhD in Material Science and Chemistry from Cornell University and has worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratories) but she has pursued ‘the arts' defiantly throughout her life and continues to do so. She is an active and past member of several international NGOs and is currently working to open her organization - Her Rights  - to facilitate resource mobilization for women in need.  Her blog posts and stories are in effort to provoke thoughts towards social issues, especially issues concerning women. Immigration and related acculturation is also of close interest to her. The latter is the topic of her first book. She is also a blogger for the Huffington Post.

1. Tell me about yourself. What kind of writing do you do - novels, poetry, screenplays, etc.... When did you start writing and why?

I started with an essay, and then moved to fiction, from what I understand my pieces would fall into the ‘literary’ genre there and now have started contributing to Huffington post as a blogger with mostly essays.  I haven’t ventured into writing a novel yet, but definitely plan to someday. 

2. What are you currently working on?

My biggest project now is my first book, literary fiction, collection of connected cohesive short stories. You can think of the manuscript to be similar in model to recent works like Olive Kitteridge and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. The collection depicts stories of 10 individuals who choose to immigrate to the US are linked to explore the complexities of human ambition placed against the nuances of acculturation. It is titled ‘Under The Seventh Tree.'

3. Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

I definitely outline – when I started I took some online courses available through the writing program at MIT which taught me a lot on how to think of an event or a character as a seed and then develop around that. I usually start with an idea, which comes to my head mostly when I am driving interestingly, develop the seed, outline what can happen and then put it to paper (or rather computer to be accurate).

4. What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

What I found of most value from the conference is the people I met there. You guys, our Algonkian 14 team, Susan, Michael, Paula – it was a support that had been previously missing for me. Also, unlike a previous conference attended, the sheer size being smaller made for an ambience which was very nurturing and encouraging. 

5. Top 5 books you've read?

God of Small Things, Nandita Naroke (In Bengali, By Late Humayan Ahmed), The City of Joy, Everything by Agatha Christie.

6. Where to find you?

My personal website is www.thoughtsandrights.com, twitter: @thoughtsnrights, I also guest blog for Huffington Post so you can search by my name on Huff Post and get to my blogger archive. 

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tanushree-ghosh/i-always-thought-id-return-home-to-india_b_7472776.html

Link to her personal website for more info: http://www.thoughtsandrights.com

Introducing Another Wonderful Algonkian Writer - Kathy Ramsperger

     

    

     Spring is finally here! Ahhh.The sunshine and warmer temperatures energize me, making want to wake up earlier and stay up later. More hours equal more writing time! Querying, submitting, critiquing and just plain creating! It’s been great getting more chapters in on my new YA paranormal romance – book three of the Whisper Trilogy. It’s also been amazing to keep in touch with and follow all of the amazing writers I met at the Algonkian NY Pitch conference.

     This week, I would like to introduce the first person I met at the conference, the wonderful Kathy Ramsperger. I’ll never forget the first time I talked to Kathy, I thought to myself – Wow – this woman is the real deal. She’s a journalist, and she has her own communications company! I knew right away I had a lot to learn from her. 

Kathryn Brown Ramsperger wrote her first story in fourth grade, but she began loving stories long before that. She grew up sitting on her grandparents' front porch swing, listening to her relatives weave their stories of the day. After receiving her B.A. at Hollins University, she felt a pull to see the world, so she became a journalist, and then a humanitarian worker with the Red Cross. She's lived and worked in Europe and Africa and has a special interest in the Middle East. Her most recent story will appear in the Spring 2015 issue of forgejournal.com. She's written one other novel that received the Hollins Fiction award. She also writes for online publications. Her writing, fiction and nonfiction, is about the connections between (often very different) people. She lives and writes in Maryland with her husband, two teens, and two cats. 

1.      What kind of writing do you do - novels, poetry, screenplays, etc.... When did you start writing and why? 

Maybe I started writing by chance. I never remember not writing poems and songs.

I used to say, "Give me a subject. Give me a genre. And I'll write about it." I wrote my first story in fourth grade about a jack-o-lantern who came to life. A story I wrote in high school won an award, and so I majored in English instead of Music or Biology. I've never stopped writing because I simply can't. I've tried to run away from it, and I also do humanitarian work and life coaching. Yet writing feeds my soul. 

I had to make money, and journalism fell into my lap through an internship. I published poetry and stories along the way. Once I published articles in National Geographic and Kiplinger publications, and I headed the International Red Cross publications department in Geneva, Switzerland, I knew writing would always be part of me. I also write online, with articles on Yahoo Parenting, yourtango.com and thegoodmenproject.com. I consider it a job, but I also consider it a meditation, a way to put two and two together to see the bigger picture.

These days I'm more selective about what I write, though. I write about how human connection can heal us. How we're more similar than different. I always wanted to get back to writing fiction - what I went to college to learn how to do. I won an award for a Young Adult novel in college, but I never tried to publish it because I was too perfectionistic at the time. Called Moments on the Edge, it's about the connections between two women, one coming of age in the Industrial Revolution, the other coming of age in the 1970s, during the Space Age, a revolution in technology and communication. Most people know this era as one of sex, drugs and rock and roll, but it was much more.

     After surviving melanoma in 1999, and facing all sorts of terrorism in my neighborhood in 2001 and 2002, I decided I finally needed to write and try to publish a novel. I also wanted to write a novel that would heal the rifts between continents, many of them reverberating to this day. Writing and revising what I'm now calling The Shores of Our Souls was the easy part. Its road to publishing has been long. Yet those words I wrote, no matter what happens now, will leave a legacy and a goal accomplished. That's the message I'd like to leave all writers: Just write.

2.       What are you currently working on?

     My most recent story is published in the April issue of Forge. (forgejournal.com) It's called, "A Rug, A Piano, A Quilt, A Voice." 

     My current novel has a new title following Algonkian. The Shores of Our Souls, formerly Incongruent, tells the story of two people from opposite sides of the world, differing in culture, race, nation, gender, and age, and their journey together towards healing. Dianna meets Qasim and falls for his educated charm and adventure. Yet she has trouble trusting him, more because of her own past than because of his mercurial moods, which ebb and flow as civil war expands in his homeland - 1980s Lebanon. Dianna, immersed in her own challenges, doesn't realize that Qasim is as fractured by family and societal expectations as she. Her own secrets, which brought her to New York City, keep a wall between them, much more than their differences. Yet life continues to reunite them each time they run away from each other, Dianna ending up in Sudan's civil war and Qasim rising through the ranks at the U.N. Both caring for families back home. Can they sidestep society, tradition, and their own hearts to find love and peace? 

By the way, the novel's title is derived from a Khalil Gibran quote: "Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

3.      Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

            I fly by the seat of my pants in almost everything in life. I like adventure. In writing, I come back to earth after the first draft. I outline, then revise, then outline again. I also use Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey to help me plot once my major scenes are written. He wrote this Jungian-based how-to for screenwriters to use, and I usually see my books play out like a movie if I close my eyes, so it was perfect for me. It connected my right-brained writing approach to a logical plotting method - a marriage made in heaven. I also graph my stories if I get stuck to see if the action is rising and falling in the right places. If you connect voice, plot, and setting to the heartbeat of a story arc, you're on your way to a good story.

4.       What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

I'd been marketing my novel for quite some time, and I'd taken all the comments I'd received to heart. Some of these comments were objective and true; others were based on myth. The Algonkian Pitch conference separated fact from fiction and directed me forward. As Michael Neff explains in pre-conference exercises, "The pitch wags the novel." I’m now on my way again - not only to a better pitch but to a well-crafted, well-organized novel. While in New York City, I made connections I wouldn't otherwise have made, including our workshop leader, Susan Breen, one of the best teachers I've ever met. This conference gives writers a way to meet with the insiders in publishing and to learn from them face-to-face. I returned home with a plan for revision and, I hope, publication. And I want to express my gratitude to everyone who was there!

5.       Top 5 favorite books?

Most books have transformed my life. These are the dog-eared books I carry around and re-read:

Middlemarch by George Eliot (pen name for Mary Ann Evans)

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Letters to a Young Poet by Ranier Rilke 

The Eye of the Story by Eudora Welty

Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott

Just one more? The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

6.      Where can your readers find you?

You can find more about my novel at kathrynbrownramsperger.com.

You can also reach out to me here:

@kathyramsperger

facebook.com/kramsperger

ramspergercommunications.com

groundonecoaching.com (I coach Creatives.)

http://www.yourtango.com/experts/kathrynbrownramsperger 

Interview with an Algonkian Writer - Kimberly Bunker

     

     Last week, I shared a little about the amazing Algonkian Writers NY Pitch conference I attended in March. I am still making connections from the conference and reaping the benefits of all that I learned there. I was lucky enough to be placed in group C, under the training of Susan Breen, an author and professor at Gotham University. She taught our group how to perfect our commercial novel pitches so that we were ready to pitch to editors from impressive publishing houses.  It truly was the best writers conference I've ever attended. If you'd like to read more about it, last week's blog post contains much more information about the conference itself..

     Our group, which we have since called The Algonkian 14, has created a Facebook page on which we can share ups and downs, our success stories and information about writing and publishing. We now have a place to go to support each others’ careers, share pertinent field information, and simply stay in touch. We have the wonderful Kathy Ramsperger to thank for creating the FB page, and I’ll be sharing her interview next week.

     This week on Whatever Inspires, I would like to introduce you to the talented Kimberly Bunker. Kimberly lives in upstate New York, where she is finishing both her novel and her MFA from St. Joseph's College. Her fiction recently won Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Contest and The Story Plant's Authors First Short Story Content. She's also had stories published in PANK, Used Furniture Review, and other magazines. When she's not writing or reading, she's learning a new vegan recipe or practicing aerial silks.​

1.      Tell me about yourself and your writing.

     My focus is on my novel, but I also write short stories​. I work as a freelance writer, so I write​

Nonfiction too​ - blogs, articles, etc. But my heart is in fiction.

​ 

     When did I start writing?...when I learned to write, I suppose. I stopped being embarrassed to show it to people a year or two after college. I was working for a nonprofit that led life history workshops into a women's prison. I was leading one called Live Your Dream, and the discussion question was, What is your dream? For me, the answer was easy - it came immediately, though I'd never said it out loud. "To write a novel."

 2. What are you currently working on?

        My novel, Dream, Awake, is about an artist named Jessi who, for the past year, has made a living working for the elderly recluse Errol Spice, who pays her to sit at his bedside, listen to a dream he had, then paint it. The story starts when he dies. Days later in the mail, she receives a letter that was written to him years before she met him, yet mentions her by name, and insists that he can save himself from some tragedy if only he contacts her. Shocked, and intrigued, Jessi goes in search of the letter's writer, turning first to her paintings for clues. She finds herself on a quest to uncover Errol Spice's past, and how it - and his dreams - intertwine with her own.
 

3. Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

     More so the former, but I wouldn't really call it outlining. I happened upon a new method a couple summers ago, when I was living in North Carolina. I would go off on a long walk with one scene in mind, and I would just climb into that scene and live in it. Then, when I got back to my computer, I'd have that scene  in my mind, vivid and real and sensory, and I could write about it from a place of "having been there." Of course, I'd still need to revise it a hundred times, but that was the method for getting it on paper. 

4. What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

     Publishing, and trying to get published, is not antithetical to the "art" of writing. On the contrary, trying to get published has helped me become a better writer. For so long I've been told that I shouldn't care about getting published - I should just write for the love of writing. But those two aren't mutually exclusive. Instead, they - getting published, and loving writing, and becoming a better writer - are all interrelated; they augment each other.  

​​

​Also, now, I can't imagine ever NOT writing a pitch before I start a new project. Writing a pitch is so effective in chiseling down a big story into the essential parts, the motives and the crossroads and the bare bones of the story. ​

5. What are your top 5 favorite books?

"Look at the Harlequins" - Vladimir Nabokov 

​"Kiss of the Spider Woman" - Manual Puig 

​"Slowness" - Milan Kundera 

​"Eat, Pray, Love" - Elizabeth Gilbert

​"Final Exam" - Julio Cortazar​

6. Where can we find more information about you and your books?

     I'm still working on building up a platform. Truthfully, I haven't done much yet. I'm getting there. For the moment, I'm just on Twitter - @kimberly_mb.​ Also, you can find one of my publications in Glimmer Train’s bulletin online -   http://www.glimmertrain.com/b81bunker.html

Thanks Kimberly! Looking forward to seeing Dream Awake  in print someday soon!

Until next time, be inspired!

    

     

The Writer's Backstory - The Algonkian NY Pitch Writer's Conference, and How it Inspired the Lives of 14 Writers

     

     Last weekend, I was privileged enough to attend the Algonkian Writers New York Pitch conference in Manhattan. Directed by the contagiously enthusiastic Michael Neff and taught by a faculty of talented writers, literary agents, and editors, The New York Pitch conference is devoted to helping writers develop a strong pitch for their commercial novels. Pre-conference work forced attendees to pick apart our novels on a deeper level than we usually might. We were instructed to come up with several comparable books, decide on a working title, flesh out our protagonists and antagonists, and plot our conflicts through a series of exercises.  Once we arrived at the conference, we were ready to pitch our projects.

     …Or so we thought.

      After being divided into groups that were organized by the genre of our novels, we spent hours working through our pitches with our designated mentors. We pitched. We revised. We pitched again until we had our spiels under our thumbs and could speak them with fervor and faith. On Friday morning, we were finally prepared to pitch to our first editor. She was from Berkeley Penguin and was gracious enough to both listen to our pitches and give us helpful feedback.   By the end of the conference on Sunday we’d pitched to four editors –all from big houses based in New York City. A handful of us got requests for pages and went home with a new found spring in our steps!

     The New York Pitch conference was by-far the best writing conference I've attended.

     Now I not only have a fabulous pitch and editors who are interested in reading my work, but I have a group of writing peers to support who can support me back. Our group, group C, consisted of fourteen writers from all over the country. Susan Breen, who is a successful writer and an alumni of the Algonkian workshop, was our fearless leader. She led us through the pitch writing trenches and ushered us into the world of publishing with a new and improved product.  We were so grateful to have been her students for the weekend.

     Since the Algonkian Writers New York Pitch Conference made such an impression on me, I’ve decided to post a blog series about it. The series will be entitled “The Writer’s Backstory,” because although we are encouraged to limit backstory in our projects, I happen to LOVE it! Every week I’ll post an interview of one member of the Algonkian fourteen, group C. Interviews will focus on each writer’s backstory, their careers and projects, as well as their impressions of The NY Pitch conference – specifically how the workshops helped each of them grow as writers.

     There will never be enough words to thank Michael Neff, Paula Munier, Jackie Cantor, Silissa Kenney, Lyssa Keusch, Leis Pederson, Susan Breen, and Caitlin Alexander. For your enthusiasm and time, your field expertise, and your greatly appreciated organizational skills, we all thank you!

     Without further ado, I give you the first of the Algonkian 14 – Geraldine Donaher, a Philadelphia resident and member of The Delaware Press Club. A talented writer with a background in Diocesan studies and experience living as a religious sister, Geraldine recently finished writing her first novel. Her book touches on some really interesting issues – the ins and outs of living and leaving the convent life and also life with post-traumatic stress disorder.

1.      Tell me about yourself and your writing.

I consider myself a woman's fiction urban writer. I've been writing since I was in second grade. A few years ago my mom apologized to me for not helping me in my writing career. She said as a child, I wrote constantly and was always sharing what I wrote…but with twelve brothers and sisters, she didn't do anything with my passion. She said she saw it dim over the early formative years. Actually, it didn't dim, I just stopped sharing it and have trunk loads of journals/diaries/stories/poems that I figured no one wanted to hear….but I never stopped writing.  Ten years ago, at 40, I decided to throw my passion out into the world and see what would happen. Like my family, maybe nobody wants to read it, but at least I can try. I think I already have thick skin because of my family. I've learned that's an ok thing to have.

 2. I love it that you kept on writing for yourself, even though you weren’t sharing with anyone. I think so many of us simply must write for ourselves! What are you currently working on?

 I lived as a Religious Sister in a convent for six years, and thought people may be interested in how religious life influences a young woman as she tries to create a new life for herself. I learned that religious life attracts women for different reasons: austerity, piety, redemption – even escape.  In my novel, Clara's Voice,  it’s the quiet. Growing up in Philadelphia with thirteen siblings and strict Catholic parents, Clara's empty parish church is a respite from family discord. By age twenty, these simple visits have grown into a personal relationship with God and she decides to enter the convent. For six years Clara enjoys the teaching apostolate and theological studies, but she struggles with loneliness. Unable to connect with the community aspect of Religious Life, Clara decides to leave and ventures out into the Philadelphia area.
   What follows is a different kind of soul searching as Clara struggles with boyfriends, bills, and binge drinking. Self-doubt grows with her destructive choices but In the middle of the chaos she finds quiet, confident Anton. Their friendship creates a nurturing space where Clara learns to trust her judgment again. When their friendship grows over three years into a loving relationship, Clara and Anton marry and she is confident that she’s found the companionship she has been searching for.
 When a difficult pregnancy ends with a stillborn son, Clara’s self blame exacerbates her grief. Post-traumatic stress disorder fills her with disturbing images and Clara struggles with irrational urges to kill Anton. To silence the intrusive thoughts of PTSD and save her loving relationship with Anton, Clara journeys back into the quiet that first led her into the convent. Only there, will she find the peace and love she shares with Anton. It's been waiting for her all along.

 3. Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

For Clara's Voice, I made a very general outline (not sub bullets). I'm working on a novel now called The City's Allee and am actually using an outline approach - following The Algonkian Pitch articles we had to read,

4. What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

Validated what I've already done, but didn't sugar coat anything, I think I have a realistic view on what I still need to do. I like the constructive criticism. That's where the thick skin comes in handy.
 

5. What are your top 5 favorite books?

Ahab's Wife, Z- a novae of Zelda Fitzgerald, The Orphan Train, The Red Tent, Year of Wonder - and probably ten others :)

6. Where can we find more information about you and your books?

I'm from Philadelphia and like to write about ways people better their lives through education or small business. I have a website www.geraldinedonaher.com where I interview people, and blog about some of the things happening in big cities - good and bad. The blog also organizes my information on the horrors of sex trafficking. People don't realize how close it is to their own homes.    I have a degree in English Literature, Theology, and Pennsylvania Certification in Education. I taught for fifteen years in Philadelphia Archdiocesan parochial schools and put many of my classroom experiences into Clara's Voice.  I'm the eleventh child of thirteen and put a lot of the frustration, anger, joy, and love that is the wonderful mess of family into my stories.

/http://www.geraldinedonaher.com/

Thanks Gerri! Looking forward to seeing Clara in print someday soon!

Until next time, happy writing! Happy pitching! Happy happy!

   

    

     

Music Matters - Kinky Boots and If/Then.

     I found myself crying today. Why? Because… music.

     Music evokes emotion. It can make us feel excited and “dancey”. Pharell’s Happy comes to mind – images of myself swerving and bouncing the car along a country road near our home, my kids jamming and woo-hooing in the back seat.

     Music can make us somber or relaxed. Celtic Treasure or Sandy Meldrum’s piano music chills me down and evens me out. Music digs memories from our pockets and places us at events from our past. Sometimes we smile at the nostalgia. Sometimes we quickly change the station.

     Today, iTunes released the album from the musical If/Then. I happened to order the album about five minutes after the closing scene of the Broadway show, while I was standing in line to exit the theater. At that moment, I wanted to re-experience every song right away. Unfortunately I had to wait until today, but the album was so worth the week and a half wait.

     While I was driving my daughter to the orthodontist, I got the Amazon message that If/Then was available for listening. Immediately I plugged my phone into the sound system, and we fell right into the voices of Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp. They sing about the choices we make, the big ones and the seemingly insignificant, how we experience certain adventures and tragedies by following the paths we choose, how we can only imagine what futures may have been awaiting us along the paths we opted out of. They sing about how we are all connected – the idea that the random person you flip the bird at for cutting you off in traffic today may well turn up three days from now as the doctor who’s operating on your child. 
     The songs and the musical itself force us to ask – what if?
     What if I’d gone to the party that one friend invited me to instead of going to that bar where I met my husband?
      What if I’d studied abroad for that year instead of getting a head start in my career?
      What if I’d gotten on that plane?
       How might my life look different today?
       It’s such a simple idea, but the musical poignantly portrays a middle-aged woman and her life along two possible pathways. The audience gets to experience what would have happened to Elizabeth (Idina) if she’d made the other decision. In the end, my takeaway was this – where you end up is not as important as the love you share with others and the lessons you learn along the path of your choices. None of life’s roads are without bumps, valleys, and high points, and If/Then spoke to that.
      The music from If/Then is laden with emotion, with the angst, fear, and giddiness of choosing to leap into a new circumstance. Whether a relationship, a job, or even parenthood, every choice births a new set of possibilities that never would have been if…
      Then, my daughter and I listened to the music from Kinky Boots. I couldn’t “dance the car,” as my kids like to call it, because we were on the highway, but we were bouncing and arm swaying and singing at the tops of our lungs.  Where the music from If/Then makes me feel thoughtful, Kinky Boots just makes me want to dance.
      That’s not to say Kinky Boots doesn’t hit some serious issues over the head with the sledgehammer that is a fitting symbol for Billy Porter’s crazy amazing voice. Because it does. It tackles transgender issues with humor and wit and drags even the most conservative among us to our feet until we are standing and dancing and clapping for a crew of talented men who just happened to be dancing in some very bright, very high heels.
      Kinky Boots’s message – be who you want to be – is told through the story of Charlie, a young man who inherits his late father’s failing shoe factory and Simon, a cross dresser who goes by the name of Lola. Together, the two learn and teach others how to accept people for who they are, follow dreams, and persevere.
      Before we left for New York, when I told my husband we were going to see Kinky Boots, he looked at me like I had three heads. Why on earth, he wondered, would we want to see a show about a guy who wears big red high-heeled boots?  
      “This just doesn’t sound very interesting at all,” he said, rolling his eyes and poo-pooing my show choice.
     A week later, he knows every word to the show’s hit song, The Sex is in the Heel, and sings along with the windows open in the car.
     Why?
      Because of the music.
      It snagged him right away.
      The music makes us feel alive. It stirs us up and slips us into the shoes of the characters we watched on stage.
       I can say with one hundred percent certainty that I’ll never find my husband wanting to stroll around in a pair of high-heeled red boots.
       But, watching Kinky Boots helped us to understand what it might feel like to be unable to express ourselves. It made us wonder how we would react if our loved ones weren’t proud or even accepting of the people we turned out to be.
      The show made us feel something.
      And now, the music brings back that emotion.
      Oh, how I love Broadway.
      To the directors and writers and to everyone involved in the making of these two crowd pleasers – If/Then and Kinky Boots - Bravo! I couldn’t pick a favorite if I tried.
      And, a word of advice to anyone going to Times Square any time soon – see Kinky Boots. See If/Then. I’ll know you leaped into the choice if I see your car dancing next to mine.

 

    

    

    

    

New York City - Center of the Universe

New York City. Oh... the energy! Every time I emerge from the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan, I feel like I've suddenly come awake. The buildings breathe. The sidewalks pulse. The very air sings with aromas of cultural delicacies I can't wait to taste. I am reborn with the purpose of experiencing all that life has to offer on this tiny island that seems to have its very own big, beating heart.

My husband and I have been involved in an ongoing love affair with New York City for about twelve years now. When he announced to me on our first wedding anniversary that we would be driving to the Big Apple to see a Broadway show, I thought it sounded fun. I had no idea that trip would become a recurring celebration of our love of food, musical theatre, and the indelible richness of Manhattan.

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting a series of blogs about New York City. I'll focus mainly on restaurants, musicals, shopping, and culture. If you love New York, you'll want to check out the articles for some suggestions on where to eat, what to watch and how to make the most of two days in the city with and without children.
 
Having just returned from one of our semi-annual excursions, I'm basking in the afterglow of  the high I feel every time I breathe the same air as so many amazingly talented Broadway stars. This past week-end, we saw two shows - Kinky Boots, starring the crazy awesome Billy Porter and If/Then with the powerful diva -Idina Menzel. We had fourth row seats at If/Then.
 
Four rows from Idina and her pipes of glory.

Wow. Just wow.

We couldn't have chosen two shows that were more different from each other than these two, but, when asked to pick a favorite, I wasn't able to. Both shows were surprisingly beautiful and truly awing. Later in the week, I'll post my first NYC article, and it will be devoted to these two performances. So if you're looking to visit Broadway, and you're trying to decide on a show, you can read my take on Kinky Boots and If/Then here on my blog.

Until then, I will be listening to my Kinky Boots album and enjoying the remnants of my Eataly purchases - chocolates, imported pasta and fresh baked prosciutto and provolone bread. Mmmmm... can you guess what another post will be devoted to?

Please share some of your favorite places in New York City, some of your memories, what made you fall in love with the city. Start spreadin' the news! I'd love to hear about your experiences! Leave comments below or tweet to me @danafaletti!