All posts tagged: Covid-19

Searingly Sharp Novel-in-short-stories about scandal, secrets, relationships, a teen pregnancy, IF THE ICE HAD HELD Wendy J. Fox talks about exposing motivations, artful intimacy, writing contests, more

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By Leslie Lindsay  A web of intersecting lives–often dysfunctional and unusual–told in a hauntingly intimate prose with insight and empathy. ~FICTION FRIDAY|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ When this book came to my attention, I knew I had to read it. IF THE ICE HAD HELD (April 2019, winner of the Santa Fe Literary Press Award), is a gorgeously told web of intersecting lives told in a taut, lyrical prose about disillusionments, deceptions, relationships, motherhood, and so much more. Melanie Henderson is a 35-year old professional living and working in Denver. She dabbles in affairs with married men, but still hasn’t learned that the woman who raised her is actually her aunt. But that’s only the tip of the ice berg. Told from seven different POVs over three decades, and thirty-seven chapters, Melanie only receives sixteen of them. So who are these other people and how do they fit into Melanie’s narrative? I really enjoyed this structure, but can see how others might find it frustrating and confusing–there are a good deal of threads to maintain and …

Parenting in the Time of Coronavirus–how are we coping? And isn’t it interesting that we often revert to our ‘old ways?’ Here, I talk about my daughters’ art, homes, isolation, and more

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By Leslie Lindsay  I’m a sucker for houses and homes and architecture. As a child, I grew up with an interior decorator mother. I watched as she made her own patterns, designed draperies, throw pillows, bed skirts, even the canopy to my bed. For me, though, the passion found it’s way into interiors–the structure of a place–the lines, the shape, colors, patterns, and placement of furnishings, accessories, etc. It became a way for me to contain and understand my mother’s erratic moods and behaviors. Most of the time, especially when I was younger, she was fairly balanced. When I was ten, she devolved into psychosis, never to be the same. It was at this juncture in my life, that I leaned on art and architecture as a coping mechanism. I began sketching children’s spaces at an early age. Alcoves. Study spaces. Book nooks. Play rooms. This morphed into floor plans of traditional two-story homes, ones I created model names for (The Oakwood, for example was my signature model, but there were others, too). All throughout …