We had one cruel pandemic year where the neighborhood pool wasn’t open. It was like my neighborhood’s joy was gutted that year. The streets baking with unrelenting heat. No joyful splashing sounds or cute kids in wet bathing suits following like ducklings after their parents. My neighborhood pool used to be a beauty–it had greenery […]
Author: Sylvie
I am a writer based in Philadelphia. I have three writing arenas: creative non fiction, short stories, and feminist/modern retellings of fairy tales. "The Baby and Other Stories," a memoir, is my first book length work. I received my Master of Liberal Arts, with a concentration in Creative Writing, from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. My novella, Fly, Rapunzel was a finalist in Low Fidelity Press’s 2006 Novella Award Contest. The first piece in this collection of stories (“The Baby”) was published in Philadelphia Stories; a short story (“The Woods”) was published online in Quail Bell Magazine. I have also been blogging about the process of writing this memoir: http://invokingthei.tumblr.com/
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Editorial Wisdom
Since August, I have been sending out one of my favorite recent pieces, “The Shock of Self-Love” to publications. The piece has been rejected 17 times, sometimes with very nice notes, but I wasn’t getting any feedback. I assumed something wasn’t quite working, but didn’t know where to start. Mary McBeth, editor of Memoir Magazine, […]
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From Scarcity to Clarity
In reflecting on 2020’s impacts and what I’m bringing with me into 2021, I started feeling some hope. To some degree, we’ve moved from shock to resignation—from anxiety to depression—as the pandemic wears on. But there is another phenomena underneath the losses, moments of reflection about priorities, clarity around values. In my life this takes […]
Techniques to get creatively unstuck when you know you want to write but are struggling with motivation and follow-through.
Lessons from writing therapy notes that can strengthen creative non-fiction writing, including how to communicate with editors.
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My Writing X-Ray Vision
Using writing X-ray vision when rewriting to figure out exactly what is important to you about a story and how to foreground it.
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Forward, Reluctantly
This is a story about earrings, but it is also a story about the exquisite yearning to recapture the past. The day I got engaged I bought a pair of abalone earrings at the FallingWater gift shop. I wanted to remember my engagement–the joy and excitement we shared, the trepidation even. The watery beauty of […]
I recently had the pleasure of spending a night at a friend’s New Jersey beach house. As the evening wore on, I felt incredibly blessed to be in such good company so close to the ocean. I’ve always loved the sea and I’ve always loved my friends–having both together feels splurgy and indulgent in the […]
I suck at plot. I suck at pacing. I have trouble knowing where things fit with each other, if I’m rushing or going too slow within different moments in a story. I’m not great at dialogue either. I’m probably good at half-baked ideas, strange characters, a sense of place, and mood. I’ve read quite a […]
I’ve been having the most fascinating relationship with my body these last three months. (I assume, though I’ve never specifically surveyed my friends, that everyone has a mixed relationship with their body–mine does some things with great grace and a lovely capacity for enjoyment, and the ability to deeply drink in my environment, and it […]
A couple of weeks ago, on my way to work to co-facilitate a group, while I was walking to the El and talking on the phone, a little fruit fly circumvented the shield provided by my glasses and flew straight into my eye. I was feeling a bit emotional before the fly thing happened. As […]
I’m finally able to call myself a psychotherapist. I earned my License in Clinical Social Work, and I am starting a private practice. It’s an exciting, nerve-wracking time, full of potential and joy. But one of the pieces I’m still wrangling with in my mind is how to make a life as both a therapist […]
Using your Senses to Care for Yourself I’m putting on my psychotherapist hat to write this post. Rather than tell you what steps you should take to take care of yourself, I’m going to help you craft your own self-care plan. This approach allows your wisdom and expertise in the topic of you to shine […]
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Surviving Intact
In periods of difficulty, when I achieve a little distance from that difficulty, I start thinking in more hopeful terms. I start thinking about joy and humor and hope, and how they are magnificent stars that can keep me oriented towards the things I wish for in life. So I’ve been thinking about moving towards, […]
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Resistance
Resistance, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “The refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.” (I wrote this draft several weeks ago, but it took until today to feel ready to post.) I’ve been thinking about injustice a lot. About violence and fear. About grief and […]
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Heartbreaking and Heart Making
I went to a bridal shower this afternoon and one of the bits of wisdom shared was that marriage is heartbreaking work. While I generally agreed with the sentiment it didn’t feel like a total articulation of the experience. So I sat on the train to Harrisburg en route to visit my mother in law […]
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The Silence the Pope Brings
The pope came to Philadelphia. A full assortment of feelings were expressed by the Philadelphians I spoke with–a few were delighted, most were inconvenienced. A friend of mine, closer to the gathering on the Parkway, said her block socialized the whole weekend, taking advantage of the car-less streets. In my neck of the woods, across […]
I met someone unbearably cool on Thursday night. She had dyed silver hair with purple streaks framing her lovely face. She was middle aged, perfect smile wrinkles around her eyes. She had a bass guitar strapped to her back. She oversaw a software development team and she knew my friend because she also plays ice […]
When I visit Manhattan, I feel seized by that New York excitement, a state of being which resembles my hyper teenage self. (I know there are songs written about this, and the reason there are songs is because it’s real: That NY state of mind.) The great mix of people and the sounds and the […]
I went back to Fallingwater, as I had promised myself, but this time I took my sweetie. I had the same reaction as the first time, I was moved by all of its beauty–a feeling of profound wellbeing settled in. Fallingwater feels like home. Home. Looking through Merriam Webster’s definitions, the snippets that resonate with […]