Nancy Freund's Blog

September 30, 2018

Incroyable: Richard Russo and Crew in Switzerland


I am just home from the most unexpected three-day experience in Switzerland – sixteen years of living in this country – I’ve never seen anything quite like it. A literary festival featuring American writers in Oron-la-Ville – not far from Savigny, a rural area where I take my dog to stay when I travel. We are now a couple of hours, depending on traffic, from Geneva. To be exact: L’Amerique a Oron, Festival de Litterature Americaine en Terres Vaudoises, featuring...

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Published on September 30, 2018 00:45

July 6, 2018

Great stuff straight from Robert Olen Butler

A week ago in Portugal, I attended Robert Olen Butler’s workshop at the 15th International Conference on the Short Story in English. (Google it. Truly remarkable thing, every two years... ok, wait – here). He sat at the head of a large table in a University of Lisbon classroom – terrible temperature control, as is the case with all classrooms everywhere in the world – and as soon as everybody started scribbling notes, he said don’t bother it’s all in h...

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Published on July 06, 2018 10:35

February 24, 2017

Poetry is Conversation

Poetry, like music, is a conversation. I love a good, quiet one-on-one, whether it’s in the coat room near a busy party or a corridor outside a classroom, or sitting on a big slab of warm mountain rock after a hike, and all the others are settled in elsewhere with their open backpacks and bottles of water. Sometimes the most important things are said just outside the perimeter, the lovely periphery, and sometimes just in passing. Often, the important conversation is the one that follows...

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Published on February 24, 2017 02:25

February 19, 2017

The Literary Agent Gong Show

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I’ve got thick skin! After thousands of rejections on my way to various publications, I’ve developed a pretty good ability to constructively receive criticism of all kinds. I’m no scaredy cat. Still, every time you step up to ask for feedback on your creative work, you have to suck in a deep breath and prepare.


Literary agents are inundated with submissions, so they have to go rapidly through their slush piles.  Very few published works find their agents or publishers t...

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Published on February 19, 2017 06:00

February 5, 2017

Then What the Hell's a Poem For?

 

Lufthansa Flight Home, Airport Lounge

Nancy Freund


Dried apricot, smoked Gouda

She let me wash her hands

Cabernet Sauvignon

When the water finally warmed,

she smiled and said ooh…

Big fat raisins

brie

Hugged my mom good-bye

she held me tight

her shoulder blades

her ribs

her hands clasped round my back

Fat-free angel cake



Here’s a poem I wrote. I write poems when I’m feeling something with an inescapable intensity, and I just don’t know how to otherwise deal with it....

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Published on February 05, 2017 13:05

December 31, 2016

Dreams, goals, and saving small lives

Last day of 2016 – time to throw in the towel. According to Goodreads, I’m four books shy of my reading goal, and although I’m actually in the middle of five books, I’m not going to rush to finish any of them. Having been whacked over the head way too many times recently by the word CONTENT, my New Year’s Resolution is now to avoid consuming content. Sorry Goodreads. It’s for good reason, at least, that I’m revising rather than accomplishing this year...

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Published on December 31, 2016 07:10

November 26, 2016

Distance, Disorder, Chaos, Connection and Gifts



Turkey Day. No turkey for me, but huge, humongous gratitude. First of all, I married my guy on Thanksgiving Day, 25 years ago, and that’s the utmost. He’s on his way home this weekend, and I’m grateful that he’ll be here, and grateful that we have figured out a way to make the distance work when there’s distance. Everybody has distance of one type or another, from their loved ones. Maybe yours is miles, or it’s politics, or it’s 80’s versus 70...

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Published on November 26, 2016 08:25

November 19, 2016

Conflation of Asides

Conflation of Asides.

I’ve been insane with abundance. I’ve got 20 minutes before my great friend, great writer friend, I might say, but great friend Michelle and her husband are due to pick me up to go out for Thai food at the place that once gave me all the purple orchids from their tables because it was my birthday, and I love that place, and it’s right next door to the King Size pub where Michelle’s college roommate and fellow study-abroad pal from Paris will be per...

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Published on November 19, 2016 16:00

November 17, 2016

TMI

Hi Good Readers on Goodreads,
For some reason my blog isn't syncing here anymore. The glitch is driving me crazy, so I thought I'd try a hyper-link until I find a fix. Here's a new blog post on teaching, writing, data, squirrels, TMI, oxymorons, and LOVE. Hope the link works this way, because we can all use a little more of all of the above in our lives, right? Maybe not so many squirrels.
xo Nancy

http://www.nancyfreund.com/apps/blog/...
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Published on November 17, 2016 06:18 Tags: age, blog, creativity, data, education, family, grammar, love, tech, teenagers, tmi

November 16, 2016

TMI

Some people believe there’s no such thing as too much information, but I’d say it depends on the category. For example, I love a certain level of gross. Last week at my folks’ house in California we had Jake the awesome pesticide guy help us out with what we learned were pantry moths in my dad’s office. (Hidden stash of pistachios behind his computer – highly NOT recommended. I may never eat a pistachio again in fact, and they were previously my third favori...

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Published on November 16, 2016 21:50