Tag Archives: What You Get at Home

Miriam Rudolph’s diary of places

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Friday evening, H. and I enjoyed a show of Miriam Rudolph’s work at Fleet Gallery, featuring some of her autobiographical work — her “visual diary,” she calls it — including scenes of Paraguay, Winnipeg, and rural Manitoba. It was the closing reception of the show, and the artist was in attendance from Minneapolis, where she currently lives. We’d met her before, at the launch of her book, David’s Trip to Paraguay, and I’d viewed her work at her website, but this was a chance to see it “for real” and also to chat with her again.

Miriam Rudolph with print version of “Holding On” at Fleet Gallery, Nov. 23, 2012

Rudolph grew up in Paraguay, then moved to Canada to study. Her overarching theme, she said in an interview at Branch, is “the experience of places.” She develops a deep connection with places where she lives, but is “also always an…onlooker or outsider.” In her work, one gets a sense — sometimes whimsical, sometimes deeply serious — of what it means to leave places one loves, and to come to love the places where one arrives. Continue reading →

Riding the train

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I recently spent six days away, in the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan area, speaking at a women’s retreat, and while there anyway, enjoying a visit with two of my sisters and their families, as well as launching my new book at Saskatoon’s McNally Robinsons. The retreat was the main thing, of course, some 45 in attendance from Mennonite Church Saskatchewan considering the theme “Called to Rest, Called to Renewal.” And such wonderful women they were, blessing me with their warmth, participation, and conversation.

But I’m finding that the piece of Away that seems to hook the most curiosity when I’m asked about it — and answer — is the fact that I took the train to and from. It’s understandable, I suppose; I hadn’t been on a Canadian train myself for at least 25 years. So, today I’m blogging about riding the train. Continue reading →

What it’s like to launch

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It’s a good thing I promised to say something about the launch of my book, because I’ve slipped back into regular mode, meaning it feels somewhat distant already, so why go on about it? And we’re having wintery weather at the moment – yes, that’s snow caught in the grass – when just days ago, pre- and launch days, that is, it was gorgeous autumn. As if in the meantime a season has come and gone.

It’s good for me, though, to remember and also explain things to myself, and in addition, Shirley Hershey Showalter, in a FB post, said, “I hope you’ll describe what it’s like to launch,” so here I am, on about it. (She’s very close to completing a memoir manuscript for which she already has a contract, so her launch lies soon ahead of her.)

For me, then, and Shirley, and anyone else interested, this is about the launch of my collection of short fiction, What You Get at Home, last Tuesday. Continue reading →