And on the 7th day….

I wanted to find a lighthearted title for this week’s Substack. For the last week, I worked eight, nine, ten hours a day unmaking a world that I had built up around myself in Oakland, California since the Oakland Firestorm of 1991. 

Backyard and terrace with gas fireplace off the bedroom

When my home burned down, I got the incredible opportunity (though I didn’t realise it at the time) to tell my architect exactly what I wanted in a house. I chose to simulate an adobe dwelling in Santa Fe. I was named after my great Aunt Sara who lived there most of her adult life and, romantic that I am, I thought this was a way of honouring her. I mixed the Adobe look with the Tuscan hills architecture around Florence where I spent one of the happiest times of my life. I chose doors from a company in Santa Fe, found mesquite wood at an antique store and asked the builders to plaster around it just as if it was adobe. I learned how to cut plastic garden pots in half, adhere them to the outside wall and stucco over them. Right side up, they became planters. Upside down they become covers for lights. The contractor let me design every nook and cranny (and there were many literal nooks and crannies where I could put all my treasures I’d collected in my travels) , and took my suggestions.

Most of it worked. Some of it didn’t. I closed in a deck and made it my bedroom and made my bedroom a sitting room. The entire top floor was a Master bedroom with french doors that opened onto a terrace with a gas fireplace, a table with six chairs, roses, coreanothus, a magnolia tree and a number of liquid amber. It was a sanctuary. As an old saying goes, I got out of that house exactly what I put into it: my heart and my soul. There were always animals running around as I volunteered at the Oakland Animal Shelter and couldn’t help myself.

In 2013, I had retired and decided to move to Paris for a year. As anyone knows who has been reading this blog since 2016, I fell in love with Paris. One year turned into two years. Two years turned into three. Eventually I was a resident in both countries and financially supporting two residences. As I grew older, I found it tiring to have so much responsibility. The idea that I had to make a decision about living in one place or the other developed long ago but was more a ping pong game in my head. I couldn’t land on a solution. I’d end up saying ‘if I could just beam my Oakland home over to Normandy, I’d be in heaven.’

Of course that was not going to happen. This winter, I made a decision before I realised I had. I decided to sell the sanctuary, leave California, and live permanently in Paris. My US presence would be in Ann Arbor, Michigan where my sister lives. I realised the decision was made at the end of a three month stay in Oakland. Immediately, I began to grieve and remember all the wonderful times in the house. I shut my feelings down temporarily and put the wheels in motion. I made reservations to return to Oakland on April 10th for one week. In that one week, I had to decide what I wanted to keep and would send to Ann Arbor; what I wanted to go to Paris — my hope is to find a larger apartment in Paris once the house sells; —and what to leave behind. I was referred to the most wonderful packer/mover, Amy McEachern, who showed me how to put blue stickies on anything going to Paris and yellow stickies on anything going to Michigan. She would come in with her crew after I left, and pack it all up and get it sent. Then another crew would enter the scene. They’d do an Estate Sale and liquidate what doesn’t sell. At that point, the house will just be a house. My sister has taken all the ceramic cats that lived in the back yard. Everything that possibly could be called a thing will be gone. Thirty years of what I loved, enjoyed waking up to in the morning, looked at when I climbed the stairs up to the bedroom will have traveled somewhere else. I got promises from everyone that that somewhere would not be a dump. The house would then be ready for staging. Staged by someone who doesn’t know the house, all her secrets and stories. I’m sure it will be beautiful but will it feel alive?

A week is not much time to make those kinds of decisions. I was afraid I would procrastinate. I didn’t think I would change my mind. I put out a Help call and friends came over to sit with me or make decisions with me. Either way, they provided energy so that I could get the work done and I got to spend time with them. By Monday, the 5th full day of work, I hit a wall, My exhaustion made me dizzy and I didn’t feel safe driving a car. I asked a friend if we could play Driving Ms Daisy. Amy called to ask if I needed a strong guy to come over and take things out of my attic so I could sort through it. I’d already seen what a mess it was up there. But I couldn’t remember any one thing that was there. I clearly hadn’t missed any of it in the past ten years. I thought about it for two minutes and then told her the truth. I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t do any more work. I was going to leave it for the Estate and Liquidator people. The sixth day was spent with my realtor and going over everything to make sure the stickies had stayed stuck. And on the 7th day, I went to SFO and slept nine hours on the plane back to Paris. 

For the next three nights, I slept twelve hours a night. I’m sad. But here’s the thing. For one of the first times in my life, I made a decision to let go. I had a choice. I didn’t have to wait until my beautiful home collapsed in an earthquake or burned again in a Firestorm. The choice I made was to let go of something I love knowing that it meant lots of tears, grief, sadness, and memories. I wasn’t going to mistake the sorrow for thoughts that I’d made a mistake. Letting go is hard and I’d been trying to avoid that for years. Letting go also means that I get to move on. I moved to Paris ten years ago. It’s taken me ten years to get the message that it was time to move on. 

Or as a friend of mine says: “It is what it is and probably right on time.”

A bientôt,

Sara

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Please Keep your Hands in my Food: Why this butter made people mad by Anna Muckerman

I have mentioned before that the indefatigable Judy MacMahon, who writes “le bulletin” substack has pulled as many of us that write about France or Paris together into FranceStack (click to see all the substacks).
She encourages us to repost each other’s writings 1—because they are often on different subjects and 2—to bring attention to other blogs and Substacks that might interest readers. I urge you to go visit Judy’s Substack ‘le bulletin.’ Unlike me, she consistently writes every week, does amazing research on fascinating subjects of French life, and is a wonderful, encouraging supporter of all of us that write here in France.

The following is an article from last week’s ‘le bulletin’ written for her magazine MyFrenchLife.org. She also has a book club that meets on Zoom about 4 times a year. Before the Zoom meeting, readers have a chance to discuss the book as they are reading it. Presently, the book club is reading The Postcard by Anne Berest.

beure - Butter
Kneading butter at the Beurre Bordier atelier in Brittany. Image from the Eater video found below

And now to the article by Anna Muckerman…….

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“In July 2022, I was filming a video about Dijon mustard in a village restaurant in Burgundy when the chef said to me,

You should really do a story about Beurre Bordier up in Saint-Malo. That’s what all the big French chefs use.”

Beurre Bordier

I had never heard of Beurre Bordier, but I soon discovered that it was almost like never having heard of Ben & Jerry’s — it was the butter, renowned both in France and worldwide, a gem, but hardly a hidden one.

Four months later, Eater sent me to Beurre Bordier’s atelier in Brittany to see the magic for myself. The company was founded by Jean-Yves Bordier, who in the 1980s revived the historical technique of remalaxage – or re-kneading – and developed a roster of flavored butter including the signature Brittany seaweed butter that the company is known for today.

La Maison Du Beurre
Bordier’s flagship store La Maison Du Beurre in Saint-Malo

Monsieur Bordier had recently retired, but the company’s oldest employee Vincent Philippe graciously walked us through the process. I learned that Beurre Bordier does not produce butter from cream. They buy high-quality, organic churned butter in giant blocks and rework it on a giant wooden kneading machine by adding salt and removing water until the flavors become more developed (read: delicious).

Then they add exciting flavors like wild garlic, Madagascan vanilla, buckwheat, or yuzu, to name a few, and form it into custom sizes and shapes for customers around the world.

A few months later, I spotted Beurre Bordier for sale in a swanky Bangkok shopping mall. I excitedly told the young woman behind the counter that I had just been to the place where the butter was made. Understandably, she pointed at the butter as if to say Cool story, and would you like to buy some?

You can see the whole process here:

Butter and YouTube

To date, 6.6 million people have watched this video, making it my most-viewed work (full disclosure: anything about butter performs well on YouTube). Nearly 2,000 people also took the time to leave a comment. Here is a selection of them:

 – “i really like the amount of hand hair that went to making of this butter”

– “love how they wear a Hairnet but his Hairy arms are wide open”

– “Love the taste of finger prints in slice of butter..!!” (This one really cracks me up: What do fingerprints taste like? Imagine slicing butter and finding one inside!)

– “While I’m sure this is quality butter I don’t want employees working gloveless with hairy ass arms kneading my butter.”

– “Hand sweat adds flavor.”

Now, if you’re going to work with YouTube in any capacity, you can’t get bent out of shape about the comments. In fact, it’s wise not to read them at all, except in specific cases like Eater videos because there are often a lot of lovely comments from people who have nice things to say.

However, these particular comments are emblematic of a wider societal problem: We can’t stand hands touching our food. I’ve noticed it in other places, too – like this Instagram Reel and this one where people are wearing gloves while cooking for no apparent reason.

Sure, some people may wear gloves to avoid the squishy texture of raw meat (although in the first video, he doesn’t even touch the ground beef!) but what purpose do gloves serve when slicing an onion or an avocado?

It seems that somewhere along the line, we got the idea that hands = contamination and that we should use gloves when preparing everything, as if the kitchen were a hospital. We forgot that cheese is made of mold and yogurt formed by bacteria. Food should be clean, but it was never sterile to begin with.

No longer a germaphobe

Ironically, I grew up quite the germaphobe. Even as a kid, I couldn’t stand to see people make food while wearing rings and so much as an eyelash hair on my plate would ruin my whole meal. Over time though, as I’ve traveled more and eaten in other people’s homes, I’ve come to realize that hands are precisely what elevates food from a simple means of sustenance to one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Food safety is important, but cleanliness should not mean avoiding human involvement.

In many places worldwide, food is now something that comes in a brightly colored package with lab-derived ingredients. Cheese is wrapped in plastic with a picture of an idealistic-looking farm that hardly resembles modern, industrial dairies. In the U.S., I recently saw flawless, elongated bell peppers, bagged and branded with a cutesy name as if they were produced in a candy factory instead of a field.

This isn’t a rant against mass-scale food production, which has allowed us to more efficiently feed ourselves, and refocus our energy on other areas. I’m simply pointing out that the more detached we become from what food is, the more we develop a warped view of how it should be produced. We’d rather a machine pop out perfectly uniform, brightly dyed pieces of cereal than eat butter molded with care by clean, washed hands.

At Beurre Bordier, Vincent explained that bare hands allow the workers to understand; if the butter has been mixed correctly, and if the temperature and consistency are right. In other words, whether it’s safe and delicious.

To be clear, not all cultures seem to suffer from the fear of hands touching food – some embrace it wholeheartedly. After all, isn’t this the way it’s been done since the literal beginning of mankind?

I, for one, would like to say:

please keep your hands in my food. “

As Vincent told me on the day I visited Beurre Bordier, clean hands are much preferable to dirty gloves.

What’s your view on cooking with your hands? Share in the comments below.

Further reading:
French Butter why is it so delicious?
Butter: Exploring the French Paradox

Thank you for reading Out My Window. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Thank you for being such an important part of my week. This blog wouldn’t exist without you: someone who wants to know more about this wonderful country.

A bientôt,

Sara

Coming to you from Paris in four short months: The Summer Olympics

If you ask a Parisian, any Parisian, French or exPat, if they are excited about the Olympics coming to Paris in late July, they will probably roll their eyes, get dark around the gills, and tell you they are leaving town—until the end of August. The newspapers say it will be a ghost town. With 10,000 tourists landing like locusts in every part of Paris, willing to pay up to 1000 euros a night for a place to stay, it will hardly be a ghost town. But likely a town of mostly tourists.

The problem for Parisians is that the majority of them cannot afford the prices of the events. We were led to believe that there would be special days where we would be privy to advance sales before they went public. Even then, the most reasonable ticket prices were gone, it was next to impossible to click through to purchasing a ticket, and it became so frustrating we gave up. I wanted the equestrian games which are to take place in Versailles, the tennis which is right around the corner from me at Roland Garros, gymnastics which I knew would be hard to get. Every time I went into the “special” site for residents, every single ticket was gone for all three events. In the end, I recently bought two tickets to a Rugby placement game the night before the Opening Ceremonies. I invited a friend who played Rugby for 20 years to join me. I have been wanting to learn the rules of Rugby so this in many ways would be perfect.

Then there is the roadworks, the renovations, the cleaning up of historic landmarks, putting in elevators and escalators in metro and RER stops. It has been inconvenient to say the least for at least 3 years, now it is getting unbearable. Places like Concorde will close to everything but metro traffic from now until the end of the summer. They are building a stadium at the foot of the Pont d’lena where the Trocadero gardens now are. Cars used to driving along the quai there will be diverted to…..I can’t even imagine where. Anywhere would be a nightmare of snarling traffic. The above map, taken from the French Government site, gives an idea of where construction is happening and who/what is not allowed there. 

There is no doubt that these renditions of the stadium with the Tour Eiffel looking over it are beautiful. For people living in other parts of the world, there is undoubtably a sigh of “how beautiful Paris manages to stay beautiful even for the Games.” The Games are for tourists. They will come maybe a couple of days before the Opening Ceremonies to get over jetlag and exclaim at the beauty, the wonder that is Paris with it’s light, it’s sky, and it’s history. They will not know and never know what Parisians had to put up with to get to the Opening Ceremonies. Which about sums up the Olympics for Parisians: all the inconvenience and the events are all unaffordable. ““We’ve been suffering since the Games were declared,” grumbles Nico, a law professor who lives across the street from the Louvre with his wife, Marianne, the owner of a P.R. firm. “Permanent road works, shit everywhere, and obviously the hassle during the Games themselves.”—Alexander Marshall in AirMail

“Today, as the clock ticks down to the opening ceremony on July 26, even as an 82 percent completion rate of building construction has been announced, mostly on schedule, and with a carbon footprint projected to be half that of the previous Games’ average, the city is far from having caught Olympic fever. Instead, it’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”—A. M. in AirMail

From the site Paris.fr:

Quel calendrier pour le montage et le démontage des sites ?

Zone Concorde

1er mars : Début de montage par l’est de la place

Extension progressive du chantier sur l’ensemble de la place de la Concorde du 1er mars au 1er juin

  • 1er avril : quart sud-ouest de la place
  • 26 avril : fermeture de la circulation : (piétons/vélos/véhicules) sur le Cours de la Reine entre l’avenue Winston-Churchill et l’avenue Franklin-D-Roosevelt
  • 17 mai : fermeture axe nord-sud à la circulation (piétons/vélos/véhicules)
  • 1er juin : fermeture de la circulation véhicule, piétonne et cycliste sur l’ensemble de la place de la Concorde
  • 1er juillet : fermeture à la circulation (véhicules) du Pont du Carrousel
  • 15 juillet : fermeture à la circulation (véhicules) du Pont Royal

Libération progressive du site à compter du 19 septembre :

  • 7 octobre : libération de la majorité du site, sauf autour de la place Jacques-Rueff
  • 4 novembre : libération totale du site

Zone Champ-de-Mars

4 mars : Début de montage par la place Jacques-Rueff et avenue Joseph-Boulard (fermeture aux véhicules et piétons)

Extension progressive du chantier sur l’ensemble des jardins du Champ-de-Mars du 4 mars au 1er juillet

  • 12 avril : fermeture de la place Gouraud et extension dans le jardin
  • 3 juin : fermeture quasi complète des jardins du Champ-de-Mars
  • 1er juillet : fermeture à la circulation (véhicules) du Pont d’Iéna
  • 24 juillet : fermeture à la circulation (véhicules en surface) du quai Jacques-Chirac

Libération progressive du site à compter du 19 septembre :

  • 7 octobre : libération de la majorité du site, sauf autour de la place Jacques-Rueff
  • 4 novembre : libération totale du site

And Finally:

Zone Trocadéro

20 mars : début du montage par la place de Varsovie et fermeture à la circulation de la partie nord de la place, mise à sens unique de l’avenue des Nations-Unies et fermeture aux piétons des abords de la fontaine

Fermeture progressive des jardins du Trocadéro du 20 mars au 1er juillet

  • 1er mai : Circulation réduite à une file dans chaque sens sur l’avenue du Président-Wilson et fermeture de la chaussée Sud de la place du Trocadéro
  • 10 juin : fermeture de l’avenue des Nations-Unies à la circulation (piétons compris)
  • 1er juillet : fermeture des jardins du Trocadéro et fermeture à la circulation (véhicules, piétons et vélos) de l’avenue Albert-de-Mun et du sud de l’avenue Wilson (entre Albert-de-Mun et place d’Iéna)
  • 16 juillet : fermeture de la place du Trocadéro et du pont d’Iéna (véhicules motorisés, piétons et vélos)
  • 21 juillet : fermeture aux voitures du quai Jacques-Chirac (entre les avenues Suffren et Bourdonnais), le souterrain reste ouvert à la circulation

Du 27 juillet au 8 octobre : libération progressive de l’emprise

  • 27 juillet : place du Trocadéro
  • 12 août : pont d’Iéna et quai Jacques-Chirac
  • 7 septembre : place de Varsovie et avenue des Nations-Unies
  • 15 septembre : avenue Wilson
  • 19 septembre : majorité des jardins du Trocadéro
  • 8 octobre : libération totale du site

Here is the schedule, in French, for the above sites. For a good translation app, use DeepL. It is the best of all available.

Pour voir les cartes en plus grand :  Click here to see bigger maps: both of sites and of the different events.

As is quite clear, and even those of you who don’t read French can probably suss out, that from the middle of March until the 4th of November, these sites will be a nightmare for those of us who live in Paris, have to work in Paris, have doctors’ appointmentts and other important appointments. People are being told to work from home. But perhaps their work won’t let them.

There are far too many questions floating around which only adds to the stress. It is impossible to get excited about the Olympics. This is the very first year that I haven’t been excited. I’m going to make an attempt, with friends, to try and see the Opening Ceremonies but I don’t have high hopes.

I plan to write more about the plans, growing furor, and possible excitement about the Parisian Summer Olympics—-which is followed immediately by ParaOlympics.

Hotel de Ville decked out in Olympic flags

A bientôt,

Sara

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Back in Paris….

I flew back home last week, a smooth-as-ice plane ride with no hiccups, just nice people in the air. No flat tires, no holes blown out in the side of a plane. It was a United flight and United is getting bashed but this was a great flight. People smarter than I am say that it takes one day of jet lag for each time zone one crosses. I crossed nine and it took me about two weeks to feel solidly on French soil.

The day after I arrived, I walked to Parc de Bagatelle to check on my cats and peacocks. I was also crossing my fingers that I had not missed the daffodils which bloom in February and March. It is a sight to behold. Fields and fields of daffodils, yellow, white, cream, and even cream with yellow centers. Daffodils have long been one of my favorite flowers, and to see the Wordsworth poem laid out like a carpet in front of me is un émerveillement. I was not too late. I think that the entire month of March will be Daffodil Heaven!!

I also saw something else that in all my years of going to Bagatelle I’ve never seen. A male peacock courting a female peacock. Mating season starts now and goes through June or July. Female peacocks make themselves scarce while the males prance all over the parc. They are real show-offs. They will spread their beautiful tail feathers into a peacock fan if there are enough people to watch. They will walk right up to you, and, if you keep your hand open and flat, like one does with a horse, they will eat kibble out of your palm. What I saw was fascinating. A female was up on the stump of a tree cleaning herself and ignoring the male. The male had his fan unfolded. He would literally shake a tail feather and the entire fan would vibrate for about 30 seconds. If you watch the video, you can see him start the vibrations. The feathers shake like leaves blowing on a tree. It’s as if with the shaking of the tail feathers, he is winding up his motor for the fan vibration. He slowly takes little steps towards her. But before he gets close, she takes off.

Peacock courting
dance

Many European cities have Parks, Gardens, and Squares for the public and, probably Paris is not #1 but only because many European cities share the best public gardens with Paris. One cannot go walking for more than ten minutes without stumbling on a green space where Parisians are sitting on benches reading books, or eating a meal, or taking longs walks as is true with Bagatelle. Parc de Bagatelle is in the northeast corner of Bois de Boulogne. North, in the 17th arrondissement, is the beautiful Parc Monceau which combines the best of manicured gardens with wild grasses and trees, and the feel of walking in a forest. In the 20th is the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. It is large but not on the scale of Boulogne or Vincennes, the two Bois that sandwich Paris between them. Buttes-Chaumont has many walking paths, a playground for children, marionettes, and food stands. East of the 20th arrondissement is Bois de Vincennes, slightly larger than Bois de Boulogne. There is a Chateau that is open to the public, two lakes, a tennis club, riding club and a sports arena. Among other things.

I have long theorised that the majority of Parisians have small apartments. With no front or back lawns to enjoy the sunshine, Parisians use the closest park as their outdoor home. The same is true for meeting for a coffee or a drink. Apartments for the most part are small and few of us have a kitchen table to hang out at with a friend. So we meet in cafés where no one will urge you to leave. As we exPats learn to do that, we join the wonderful sidewalk society that Paris is so famous for.

Avenue Mozart

I will end with one of my quibbles of living here and having a lot of communication with the US. The US changed their clocks and sprung forward on March 9/10. Europe and the UK do not change their clocks until Easter. Three weeks of having to remember that the time difference is one hour less than normal. I missed an important meeting last night, came an hour late to my writing class and my writing group. I usually am very good at remember this difference, and I’m blaming it all on still being sleepy from jet lag. I can’t get away with that much longer. So I wish those readers in the US: “Enjoy your late evenings” We will catch up with you!

A bientôt,

Sara

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Writing in Paris – Part 2

The Paris Writers Workshop

In January, I wrote about the first workshop I ever participated in and why it was so valuable to me. And because of the Workshop, I went on to write and publish a book, and call myself an author.  Now that the Paris Writers Workshop is open for registration and only three months away, I wanted to describe specifics. As dry as this writing might be, every word is written with gratitude for the opportunity granted to me.  As my mother used to say to me constantly: “There is no such thing as luck. It’s grabbing at an opportunity when it presents itself.”

Why would Paris residents want to register for PWW? For one, it is so accessible–a metro ride away. It’s affordable—as in the past, there is an early bird registration which I took advantage of each year that I registered. And as WICE is a nonprofit, the price is very reasonable.

PWW will be held at the beautiful Reid Hall in the Columbia Global Centers in the literary Montparnasse neighborhood. There is a large beautiful garden area with plenty of seating. One can write at one of the many tables or bring a bag lunch to enjoy with your cohorts surrounded by trees and summer flowers. Le Select, La Coupole, Le Dome, and Le Closerie de Lilas (one of Hemingway’s hangouts) are in walking distance.

Reid Hall

And non-Paris residents? Who would turn down a chance to visit Paris in the early summer before the craziness of the Olympics starts? We will happily make suggestions for reasonable accommodations (but I’m told you need to make those reservations now as Paris is raising prices in anticipation of the Summer Olympics), and you will have a new literary home away from home.

Now to the really good part:

We have an amazing lineup of teachers for six tracks.

The Novel master class will be taught by Samantha Chang. I know her as Sam.

Sam is the Director of the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of The Family Chao (she spoke at the American Library Summer 2022), Inheritance and other titles.

The Memoir/ Creative Nonfiction class will be taught by Jennifer Lauck.

Jennifer is the Founder of the Blackbird Studio for Writers. She is the author of Blackbird,a Memoir of her childhood, and 3 more memoirs that followed. Oprah said that everyone should read Blackbird. She also writes a wonderful Substack: Flight School with Jennifer Lauck

Poetry will be taught by Heather Hartley.

Heather, a resident of Paris, teaches Creative Writing at the University of Kent (UK) Paris School of Arts and Culture.  She is the author of the poetry collections Adult Swim and Knock Knock.

This year, we are offering three new tracks:

Speculative Fiction will be taught by Kevin Brockmeier.

Kevin is the author of The Brief History of the Dead, The Truth about Celia and other titles. He frequently teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Screenwriting will be taught by Diane Lake.

Diane has written many screenplays for major studios including the Academy Award winning Frida. She is the author of The Screenwriter’s Path: From Idea to Script to Sale.

Travel Writing will be taught by Don George.

Don is Editor-at-Large for National Geographic Travel. He is the author of How to Be a Travel Writer: the best selling travel writing guide in the world.

Go to our website, https://wice-paris.org/paris-writers-workshop for more details about our amazing faculty. Each track has its own registration page. Click on the photo of the teacher to get to that registration.

Once you register, you will receive an acceptance e-mail unless the course is full. Each Masterclass will have a maximum of twelve students.  You will be given some choices if that is the case.

Your masterclass package includes:

·       Daily small group masterclasses in your selected genre

·       Individual meetings with your faculty instructor

·       Inspirational and practical guidance for your work in progress

·       Panel discussions focused on tools of writing and paths to publishing

·       Readings by your fellow writers and faculty

·       Social gatherings with an amazing community of writers from all over the world

Students and faculty will meet together Sunday, June 2 from 2 PM to 4 PM at Reid Hall.

The masterclasses will meet each weekday from 2 to 5 PM Monday through Friday. There will be literary events each evening.

Monday morning there will be a LITERARY walking tour of the Montparnasse area for anyone who is interested. The whole week will be topped off on Friday evening June 7 with readings by the faculty and students.

And on Wednesday and Thursday, we will have two well-known British agents here. You can pre-send a writing sample to one or both and pitch your project face-to-face.

Registration is now open. The earlybird registration fee is €975.

After March 15, the fee for the workshop will be €1100.

This is a wonderful opportunity to write, to meet other writers and authors, to organize writing groups at the end of the week, and to pick the brains of published authors.

If you know anyone who is a writer who wants to write as I did or is a secret writer please pass on this information.

A group of people raising their hands Description automatically generated

Participants of the Short Story track at a PWW.

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A bientôt,

Sara

AWP 24 in Kansas City

I’m sitting in the Long Beach airport waiting for a plane back to Oakland. The weather is beautiful, the airport is small, and I could pretend I’m at some beach airport in a foreign country. It has that feel. On the TV is the Super Bowl. I’ve come from Kansas City which, it turns out, is a huge sports town. Everywhere was red and yellow. People walking in swag, banners hanging off lamp posts, signs in business windows. Now going up to the Bay Area where I imagine most everyone is rooting for the Forty-Niners. I once flew during the World Series and asked the pilot if he would give us the score periodically. He kindly accommodated me. Many others were very happy!

Angela, on our visit to Union Station where all things Chiefs was happening!

I went to Kansas City with four members of my writing group to attend AWP 24 (Association of Writers and Writing Programs). Most people register Wednesday afternoon. The panels officially start on Thursday morning and last until Saturday evening. There are so many panels, up to fifty every hour, that it is overwhelming. Last year, I looked at the titles and attended ones that sounded good. This year, I looked at the presenters and went to panels where I knew the presenters. Jeannine Ouellette, who writes Writing in the Dark, was on the first panel that I attended Thursday morning.. It was a craft panel on How to write trauma so that it doesn’t overwhelm your reader. Jeannine did not disappoint. In 15 minutes, she gave a Masterclass in trauma writing using excerpts from her book The Part that Burns to illustrate her points. She is easy to listen to and her students who have her for longer IN PERSON are very lucky, in my opinion. Those of us who subscribe to her Substack are treated to masterclasses every week. She is a generous teacher and interacts with those who are vulnerable enough to write what they have written.

Jeannine Ouellette

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My next panel was an homage to James Baldwin. I believe Thursday would have been his 100th birthday. The moderator had chosen people who “commune” with Baldwin. I was touched by both panelists. Unfortunately, two other panelists had to cancel last minute because of illness. It didn’t make any difference to me. I was so moved by the love and dedication he still inspires in people. I consider myself an essayist and look to his writings as examples of terrific essay writing. 

Baldwin struggled with his love of living in France with his guilt that he should be home……That hit a nerve with me. My mother, if she were alive, would look down on my choice of living in Paris. She would tell me to come back to the US and fight for democracy.

Friday was a wonderful day for panels. But the panels, as interesting as they are, aren’t the main reason that many of us attend the Convention. It’s a chance to meet and talk with publishers, meet and talk with the editors of journals, emerging and established, and to meet other authors. Last year, I met the editors of the Under Review. I liked them and they liked me. Eleven months later, they have published my story The Perfect Game. They had a small celebration at a place called Sinkers on Friday night and six of us read our stories. It was thrilling. This year I’ve set my sights on a Canadian Journal called Brick.

The highlight of the Convention was the Opening Keynote Speech given by Jericho Brown. All five of us in my writing group were tired even though only one day of the Convention had passed. Just navigating one’s way around the Kansas City Convention Center, without a map in hand, was an exhausting experience. I figure that three of the Seattle Convention Centers, where AWP was held last year, could fit in the KC one. The Center took up three long city blocks with bridges over the streets. A long underground unfinished walkway. It was daunting.

The Keynote speech was virtual and the AirBnB we stayed at had a smart TV! So we ate a wonderful home cooked meal of chicken, butternut squash, and salad. Then we piled onto the living room couches to listen to Jericho. I have only read his poems. I had never heard him speak. He is funny. He is passionate. He is smart. And he cares about this country. I don’t think I could find the words to do justice to his 20-30 minute talk so please know that whatever I say here, it was 1000% better. So far, the video is only available to convention goers so I can’t even refer you to that. I can start by saying he has a smile that would light up any room. He has a smile that is warm and sunny and in no way gives away the violent childhood he suffered and writes about in his poetry. He opened by making us laugh and slowly, word in hand, moved us to our responsibilities as writers and as Americans. He did this by citing many of the books that have been banned in the state of Florida: five versions of the Dictionary, the Encycopedia, the Bible (the Bible????), to mention a few that students need just to progress in school. He brought home that we writers are being banned. We aren’t spectators, we are victims if we want the freedom to express ourselves. As I’m a fairly new author, I had not made the connection that I could be banned if someone thought I used a wrong word. 1984 should be renamed. Images of Nazis burning books in the street came to mind. Jericho Brown kept at it. making sure we got it. This is happening, it can happen to you, it is happening to many of us.

By the time he finished, I was breathless. I was paying attention.

A bientôt,

Sara

Four kittens, Mama, and Me

They are tiny, four weeks old, grey with blue eyes. One of the males has a slight white blaze on his chest. One of the females is the most distinctive with white paws, a white chest, and a white line that circles the edge of her ears. She has a white ring around both eyes, which makes her eyes look very large. The other two kittens are identical except one is male and one is female. Their nails are so small, but they use them to climb everything. Unlike larger cats, no damage is done to the furniture. They weigh in around 400g. When they meow, it is a high almost inaudible peep. I’m never sure who is peeping. 

All four kittens are there.

They are all long-haired. There is a breed called Russian Blue. Usually completely grey and retain their blue eyes throughout their lives. Perhaps Mama had Russian Blue in her. 

When I travel back to the US, I leave my cat, Bijou, in Paris. Even a nonstop flight to San Francisco would require her to be in her crate for a minimum of 15 hours: 40 minutes to the airport, 2 to 3 hours at CDG, 11 hours on the plane, and one hour Bart ride to Oakland after whatever time it takes to get through Customs and Border Control. It all feels very cruel to me. So Bijou stays in Paris and I volunteer as a foster parent for Hopalong Animal Rescue. When I first arrived in November, I fostered Aleppo and Cayenne, two twelve-week old unrelated kittens. Both were sick with an illness that is contagious to other cats but not to humans. Cayenne, who lived up to his name, is an orange and white tabby and just about the friendliest kitten one could imagine. Aleppo is completely black, smaller than Cayenne, and followed him everywhere. They adored each other. After a month of daily medicine, they were fixed and both have been adopted.

Aleppo and Cayenne

Then I was asked to foster three very “shy” beauties. I put the shy in quotes because shy was another way of saying ‘still mostly feral’. I had them for a week and a half and they never came near me. They eventually wandered around the third floor level of my home that I have segregated from the rest of the house. But they would scram and hide in the boxsprings of my bed if I even made a movement. 

Two of the three “shy” kittens

I suspect I was given Mama and the four kittens partly as a way to say thank you for sitting with the three little terrors. 

When I’m sitting on my couch writing or watching some streaming on TV, the kittens treat me as if I were a climbing cat tree. Using their tiny little nails, they pull themselves up my jeans to my lap. From there, each will find a resting spot depending on what I’m wearing. one will fall asleep in the hood of my sweatshirt. Another finds any opening in a bathrobe or zippered sweat. One curls up where one of my legs crosses the other, and one will fall asleep even as he is falling off my lap. 

So where is Mama? When they arrived, all four kittens were snuggled up against her belly. She becomes a ragdoll. The kittens push each other around, trying to find the best place to sleep, or suckle. Mama’s hind leg may be straight up in the air while she tries to accommodate her brood. On the second full day that I had them, Mama found the box springs of the bed and crawled off for the entire day to rest. She is very thin. She has four white paws and a completely white chest and a pleading look in her eyes. She looks as tired as a human mother with four week olds. 

Mama is such a fur ball that you can’t see she weighs 5.5 lbs and is skin and bones.

Today, I ate my lunch up there with everyone. Mama came and jumped up on my lap. She really does seem wiped out. She purred when I petted her and we had a few sweet minutes together. Then, all four kittens started climbing my legs and snuggled into her belly. They fought over the best places, knocked each around, falling off my lap, climbing back up and eventually everyone fell asleep. Except Mama. 

Four days in, it was clear that Mama wasn’t well. She has lost almost 2 pounds. Yesterday and today, she growls at the kittens if they come near her. Everyone went back to Hopalong yesterday for a check-up. Mama got lots of saline to hydrate her. Last night she threw it all up. I was given milk substitute, itty bitty baby bottles to feed the kittens, plus transition food. They are having none of it. One of them drank a lot of the substitute milk then threw up all over my bed as I was going to sleep.

I was at my wits end. I’m now afraid Mama will die on my watch. The kittens seem fine, they just aren’t gaining any weight. I’ve bottle fed kittens in the past, many times actually, before I moved to Paris. All of them were motherless and so grateful for fake nipples and substitute milk. These kittens know Mama is nearby. My sense of them being so cute and lovable is passing. I feel I’ve taken on more than I can handle. Caring for them is a full time job. There is a reason I never wanted to be a mother. I’m too impatient and I scare easily. 

As I type, Mama has gone back into hiding. She came out for a few minutes, growled, then hid. The babies are asleep in a big grey heap on my couch. Monday, they will return to Hopalong and to another foster family. I will be flying to Kansas City and AWP 24.

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A bientôt,

Sara

My story: The Perfect Game

“We are excited to invite you to our annual AWP reading + celebration on Friday, Feb.9 at 7PM at Sinkers Lounge, in Kansas City.     (Sinkers is just 2.5 blocks from the KC Convention Center.)”

I received this e-mail two days ago. Many of you will remember how excited I was to have a story I wrote be accepted to the Under Review. The on-line digital version of the journal is out (click here). Issue 9. And many of us writers of Issues 8 and 9 have been invited to read our stories at AWP 24 (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) next month in Kansas City.

I sent the invite to my writing group to see if they would come support me and the responses ranged from “Wait, what, the Journal is out and you didn’t tell us?” “Heck yeah!” “How come you aren’t telling everyone they can see your story in print?” That brought me up short. I hadn’t even thought of telling people. Why not? I’d sent the link to a number of people I was sure hadn’t seen it and that was it. We writers have to be brazen about publicising ourselves as no one else will do it. Even for a book, the cost of having publicity done by a company is prohibitive to most people. I’m told that even traditional publishers don’t do publicity unless you are Stephen King or John Grisham. No matter how shy we are or how difficult it feels to tout one’s own horn, no one else is going to do it.

So to those of you who gave me high fives when my story was accepted and all the rest of you who may have missed that blog, now you can see it digitally in print here

If you are going to AWP 24 this year, please come to Sinkers Lounge on Friday evening, Feb 9th. If the weather keeps going in the direction it’s going, which is to say it’s getting warmer, it could well be in the low or high 40s by the time we all get there. So no excuse.

Last year, three people, that includes me, in my writing group went together to AWP 23. We’d only met on Zoom for eight months or so. It was like we’d known each other forever, we got along so well. This year five of us in the group are going. I rented a five-bedroom house that looks as quirky as we feel when we all get together. We may even get a dog staying with us this time around.

I’ll be taking flyers to AWP to advertise the Paris Writers Workshop in Paris, June 2-7, 2024. Which, btw, I have more information about. I wrote my story of Writing in Paris three weeks ago and how honored I am to be part of this year’s planning committee. At the time I published, I didn’t know some exact details. Here they are. This is the landing page telling you exact dates and about the faculty. The entire website will be up and ready for registrations on January 31.

Registration: Early Bird—975€ till March 15, 2024       

    Full price —1,100€ March 16 onwards 

Agent consultations: For an additional fee, you can register for one, or two, agent consultations. More information to come.

Cancellation Policy:

 Full refund through 15 April 2024 minus 100€ admin fee

Half refund through 30 April 2024 minus 100€ admin fee

I hope to see lots of blog writers and readers at the Paris Writers Workshop. I’ve gone twice now. It is excellent and so reasonably priced. Paris will be dressed up in preparation for the summer Olympics. It will be a good time to see all the decorations without having to deal with the crowds.

A bientôt,

Sara

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Snow and…..

Ann Arbor

Friday night, January 12, just as the sun was beginning to descend behind the trees, big fat snowflakes began to fall in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The kind that stick to the ground. Within an hour, I walked to the front door of my sister’s home and peeked out. Then I stepped out onto the porch. In front of me was a white winter wonderland. The snowfall was at least 6 inches and still going. The snow was light, light enough that it comfortably sat on tree limbs without forcing the branch to bow to the ground. Neighbors hadn’t taken down their Christmas lights. Across the street was a tree decorated in only blue lights. Without snow, in the dark, it looked dramatic. With the snow, it looked like a thousand dollar window in Macy’s or Magnins. Windows that were so magical adults as well as children were enchanted.

My sister’s next-door neighbor had started to take his outdoor lights down but couldn’t finish because of the snow and cold. The tree was sprinkled with red, yellow, green, and white tiny lights. They lighted up the lower branches of his snow filled tree. Cars parked on the side of the road had almost disappeared. No one was out. The snowfall was pristine. Even knowing that the morning would probably bring ice, cars that wouldn’t start, dirty brown tracks on the streets as people attempted to go to work or do errands, the sight of the snow Friday evening filled me with wonder. It was moments of pure joy.

I cannot remember last seeing snow like that. Living in California, we might get a sprinkle on Mt. Diablo that was gone by mid-day. On ski trips, it was rare to be lucky enough to get fresh snow for the next morning. In the ten years I’ve lived in Paris, I’ve seen snow fall five or six times. Usually flurries. Everyone gets excited but the snow doesn’t stick. The one time it did stick, the snow removers were out in record time making sure all the parked cars on every street could move.

When I was young, in college, Paris often got a foot or more of snow. Foot traffic tapped down paths on the sidewalks so people could stroll. Les marchands de marrons(roasted chestnut sellers) brought their stoves, huge iron apparatuses, and several bushels of chestnuts. They’d set themselves up at the foot of a bridge, then barbecue the chestnuts till they became soft. I’d buy a newspaper cone full of the piping hot chestnuts for two francs. Buying and eating those chestnuts became the definition of winter in Paris for me. I think I’ve seen three chestnut sellers in the last five years.

It seems I’ve only been to Ann Arbor in the winter. People say I have to come in the summer when trees are in bloom and flowers of every color are flowing off porches. The weather is warm often verging on very hot. But for my money, the experience of witnessing an untouched field of snow that goes as far as the eye can see is a wonder to behold. Of course, I don’t have to live there and suffer all the problems that are sure to happen for the next week or two.

Ann Arbor is a great town. Most important to me, if I lived there, is the fact that there isn’t a rush hour. My sister asked me to go to Plum Market for a few things for our dinner. Since it was 5:15pm, I assumed I’d have to take side roads. “No, no,” she said. I drove down Miller, turned left on to Maple, a major thoroughfare, and soon I was at Plum Market. Same amount of time as if I’d driven at 1pm. Same amount of cars. Heaven!!

It’s a walking town. The Huron River runs very close to the town and provides walkers with many lovely tow paths. The University of Michigan is right smack dab in the middle of town. I’d even go so far as to venture that the town of Ann Arbor grew up around the University. Wonderful stores line State St, Huron St and Hill St. After Michigan won the National Football Championship last Monday, the M den was packed with people buying T-shirts declaring Michigan the best at 15-0 ( I just had to get that in. It was very exciting and I love the excitement of Championship games!)

Ann Arbor is a bookstore town. There are a minimum of eight bookstores that sell both used and new books. There is even a map showing where all the bookstores are. One can make a walking tour out of a search for all the bookstores. The love of books and bookstores is very Parisian! My sister took me to Literati which sells new books. The ground floor is floor to ceiling fiction. It looks like an old timey academic library, There are even ladders. Below, on the lower floor, was non-fiction and the first floor (second in US) was the best book floor I’ve seen in a long time. Children’s books, jigsaw puzzles, beautifully crafted dolls, cards and stickers, and a collection of old typewriters on display. All this was managed by Vicky who knows every book in the store and is so personable that I found myself buying books and cards even though I almost always get my books from the Library.

I’m writing this sitting on a plane two hours out of Detroit. Thanks to all the snow that, indeed, became ice, the plane left two hour late. I’m flying west so maybe I’ll still see some daylight when we land. Meanwhile, it’s lovely to revisit Ann Arbor.

A bientôt,

Sara

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Writing in Paris…….Paris Writers Workshop June 2-7, 2024

If you have ever dreamed of writing a memoir, a short story, a novel, and doing it in the City of Light: Paris, you can do it this summer. My writing story follows.

I discovered reading for fun the summer I turned 14. During summer camp in Vermont, we were bussed down to Tanglewood in Western Massachusetts to picnic and listen to the Boston Symphony who summered there (Back then it was known as the Boston Pops).  Wandering off by myself, I found a gift shop. A plethora of paperback books on three racks greeted me as I walked in the door.  I’d never bought a book on my own.  Going into a shop and browsing, having a title leap out at me and paying for it with my own money, this was new and foreign territory for me. I spun one of the book racks and the title A Separate Peace (John Knowles, 1958) jumped out at me. I bought it.

I devoured A Separate Peace. Every afternoon rest period, I read. At night, in my sleeping bag, flashlight on, I read. The book, about two teenage boys at Exeter Academy, spoke to me.  Before I’d finished, I knew I wanted to write. It wasn’t a crystalized thought. I had so many pent-up teenage emotions with no idea how to express them other than screaming at members of my family. I just knew that getting what was in my head out on paper had to have some kind of transformational impact.

From then on, reading became my way of not feeling so alone. I wasn’t great at talking. I had an A+ in complaining. And, like so many teenagers who feel unfocused creative thoughts, I soon started writing awful poetry.

Over the next 20 or so years, I tried to write stories. I’d start out fine but could never find a way to end them. In my thirties, it dawned on me that I had nothing to say. My life experience was limited, and I had little self-awareness to make sense of the experience I did have. As years passed, I began telling myself that I was Going To Write A Book when I was 55 instead of 30.

Fifty-two years after that Tanglewood experience, I moved to Paris.  I was retired. I had more curiosity than I could contain. Writing courses were plentiful, almost on every street corner! After signing up for the requisite immersion French class, I decided NOW was the time to learn the craft of writing. I joined WICE (Where Internationals Connect in English), an organization that teaches language, creative writing, and photography courses among other offerings. It was mid-October and the only writing course that wasn’t full was a memoir class.

I am eternally grateful that the teacher loved my writing. I signed up for another of her classes in the Spring. I learned that WICE hosts a biannual Paris Writers Workshop (PWW). Unlike many workshops that take place year round in France, this one was reasonably priced. I didn’t hesitate.  Those nasty voices that tell us ‘we’re no good’, ‘Who do you think you are?’, and the zinger, ‘You’re too old to do this’, hadn’t yet taken up residence in my brain. I signed up.  I even met with one of the agents at the conference. She wanted to see more of my writing.

Four years later, I published my first book, Saving Sara: A Memoir of Food Addiction (SheWritesPress, 2020).

I became aware that in my adopted country of France, there are thousands of offerings for the writer and the would-be writer: in-person writing courses, video writing courses, workshops in gorgeous chateaux in the French countryside. But the Paris Writers Workshop stayed my first love. It was the place that had given me the confidence to call myself a writer.

This year, I’m excited to be on the planning committee of the new Paris Writers Workshop, which will be held June 2-7, 2024.

PWW began in 1988. It is the oldest continuous writing workshop in Paris. The 2024 workshop promises to be one of the best so far. The Writing Workshop includes six tracks—Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Memoir/Creative Non-Fiction, Travel Writing, Poetry, and Screenwriting — with an amazing faculty lineup. The wonderful Jennifer Lauck whose Substack Flight School with Jennifer Lauck was one of Sarah Mays top 10 writing Substacks last November will be teaching the Memoir/Creative Non-Fiction track. For the first time, we will be partially sponsored by the Columbia Global Centers and will meet in CGC’s beautiful Reid Hall, in the center of the literary Montparnasse neighborhood. 

Reid Hall at the Columbia Global Center in Paris, 6th arrondissement.

The PWW website goes live January 31, 2024. You can go to the landing page now. Click here to see it. There you will find information on each track and a bio of the teacher.

Registration starts on January 31, 2024. There is an Early Bird registration which gives the writer 100 euros off the 1200 euros price. 

And if the unexpected happens, one can get a full refund. Those dates will be up on the website.

You can also write pww@wice-paris.org for specific information. If you are sure of a track before registration opens, you can claim a spot at pww@wice-paris.org.

A bientôt,

Sara

A different version of this blog appears in the Jan/Feb issue of the AAWE News Paris

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