173: Cynthia Morris: "Chasing Sylvia Beach"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
Release Date: 03/12/2018
174: Chad Everett: "Medical Center"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Chad Everett’s TV show, Medical Center. If only I could start with the theme song to Medical Center! If I were telling you this story in person, I’d risk humming a few bars, complete with an ambulance-like scream of notes. But alas, I’m left with mere words to conjure up for you the magic that was Medical Center, an hour-long weekly hospital drama starring Chad Everett as the hip, young Dr. Joe Gannon. Chad Everett and Medical Center were literally my claims to fame when I was in college in the early 1980s at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, commonly known as...
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173: Cynthia Morris: "Chasing Sylvia Beach"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Cynthia Morris’s novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach. What do you get when you combine time travel, intriguing literary history, Paris, and romance? Why, Cynthia Morris’s novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach, of course! I know Cynthia from participating regularly in what she previously called Free Write Flings, month-long excursions that have “flingers” writing freely for fifteen minutes each day in response to various “prompts.” I’ve dipped into Cynthia’s Free Write Flings twice a year for the last several years – every October and February – to generate ideas for...
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172: James H. Cone: "Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: James H. Cone’s book Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. It has been more than 25 years since I read Rev. James H. Cone’s book Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. I was teaching an English 101 course focused on the writing of the Civil Rights Movement, and I wanted to learn more about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X and to understand better the relationship between them, the intersection points, if any, between them. Of course, I’d already read Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and his landmark...
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171: Malcolm X and Alex Haley: "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Malcolm X and Alex Haley’s book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Malcolm X wrote his famed autobiography in collaboration with African American journalist Alex Haley (most famous for his epic book Roots: The Saga of an American Family). If you are one of the many Americans who believe Malcolm X espoused violence, even hate, I urge you to read this compelling book. It reveals Malcolm X as a much more nuanced thinker and leader than depicted in mainstream media. The Autobiography of Malcolm X resonates with so much other American literature before and after its...
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170: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in Birmingham, Alabama, protesting racism and racial segregation in the city. He was arrested on Good Friday for demonstrating, which a circuit court judge had prohibited. While he was in solitary confinement, Dr. King wrote what is arguably the most important letter in American history. It was addressed to the white clergy of Birmingham, who had publicly criticized Dr. King for getting involved in a matter far from his home in Atlanta. Dr. King began...
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169: Susan Glaspell: "Trifles"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb, Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles. Born in 1876, Susan Glaspell was a prominent novelist, short story writer, journalist, biographer, actress, and, most notably, playwright, winning the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Alison’s House. She and her husband, George Cram Cook, founded the ground-breaking Provincetown Players, widely known as the first modern American theater company. In fact, it was Glaspell who discovered dramatist Eugene O’Neill as she was searching for a new playwright to feature at the theater. Though she was a widely acclaimed author during...
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168: Elizabeth Strout: "Olive Kitteridge"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Elizabeth Strout’s book Olive Kitteridge. Has there ever been a grimmer, more taciturn main character in a book than Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge? We’ve all known someone like Olive, someone who looks like she’s just bitten into a lemon, someone for whom a kind of self-righteous grumpiness rules the day. What’s so unlikely is to have such a Gloomy Gus serve as the focal point of a book. And it must be said: Olive Kitteridge is not a sympathetic character. As readers, we don’t like her. Those around her – most notably her son – don’t like her...
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167: Emily Dickinson: Poem 372, "After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Emily Dickinson’s Poem 372, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” For Patricia and our students Emily Dickinson’s Poem 372 is not – technically speaking – a story. And Dickinson is not a storyteller per se. But her nearly 1,800 poems speak deeply and powerfully to the human condition. They give a still unparalleled account of what it is to be human. Poem 372 does have some elements of storytelling. Instead of “once upon a time,” we get “after this, then this.” And then Dickinson describes the numbing, the freezing, the letting go – perhaps...
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166: James Joyce: "The Dead"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.” James Joyce’s “The Dead” is widely considered to be his best short story, called by the New York Times “just about the finest short story in the English language" and by T.S. Eliot as one of the greatest short stories ever written. The storyline is simple enough: a long-married Irish couple -- Gretta and Gabriel Conroy – attend a lavish dinner party thrown by his aunts in celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). At the party, they each have a variety of conversations with assorted party guests, and...
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165: Richard Thompson: "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"
StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups
This week on StoryWeb: Richard Thompson’s song “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.” For Jim, in honor of his birthday My husband, Jim, and I love this song by Richard Thompson and its signature line, “red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme.” In fact, the first concert we saw together was Thompson playing at the Boulder Theater, and of course, I sported a black leather motorcycle jacket. When Thompson sang the song, one of his most popular, and got to this particular line, Jim called out, “Me, too!” Thank goodness, Jim is not a heckler – and he didn’t disturb the...
info_outlineThis week on StoryWeb: Cynthia Morris’s novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach.
What do you get when you combine time travel, intriguing literary history, Paris, and romance? Why, Cynthia Morris’s novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach, of course!
I know Cynthia from participating regularly in what she previously called Free Write Flings, month-long excursions that have “flingers” writing freely for fifteen minutes each day in response to various “prompts.” I’ve dipped into Cynthia’s Free Write Flings twice a year for the last several years – every October and February – to generate ideas for StoryWeb. Go behind the scenes with us to see how it works at Beth Hayden’s website. Note that Cynthia has just launched a new version of this month-long experience. It’s called The Devoted Writer.
Cynthia is a well-known and expert writing and creativity coach. Through her business, Original Impulse, she offers online workshops, individual coaching, books to help your creative practice, and travel opportunities. Based in Denver, Cynthia leads courses in Paris quite often, leading other creative spirits through the streets of her favorite city as they create illustrated journals.
But Cynthia is very much a writer in her own right. Can’t travel to Paris with Cynthia? No worries. You can get an intimate look at the City of Light through Cynthia’s 2012 novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach.
Sylvia Beach was, of course, the owner of the famed Parisian bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. Cynthia makes Beach’s 1930s Paris accessible to us nearly a century later with the magical twists and turns of highly delightful time travel.
When Denver bookstore clerk Lily Heller visits Paris in the present day, she’s captivated by the history of the city, especially all the literary lore. She imagines all of the ex-pat Americans writing and mingling on the Left Bank, often at Shakespeare and Company.
How perfect, then, when Lily slips through a crack in time and finds herself in the 1930s Paris she’s been dreaming of. As she clatters around Paris on her bicycle, we hold our breath with her as she encounters one amazing historical person after another and let it out again when she lands a job at Sylvia Beach’s bookstore.
Before long, Lily’s got a romance on her hands with Paul and a mentor in Sylvia Beach. Will she ever want to step back through the crack in time and return to her life in twenty-first century Denver?
You’ll have to read Chasing Sylvia Beach to find out where Lily’s adventures lead her. As you join her on the streets of Paris, you’ll feel like you’ve been transported back in time as well.
Learn more about Sylvia Beach at the Shakespeare and Company website. You can also learn why Cynthia has been obsessed with Sylvia Beach for years – be sure to check out the video of Cynthia talking about Beach!
And if you’re an aspiring or experienced writer, artist, or some other kind of creative spirit, consider joining Cynthia for one of her many offerings. Visit Amazon to buy your own copy of Chasing Sylvia Beach or stop in at Cynthia’s online shop and the Original Impulse library for resources that will nurture your creative life.
Visit thestoryweb.com/morris for links to all these resources.
Listen now as Cynthia Morris reads from Chasing Sylvia Beach.