Marie Helene Bertino

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

-W. Somerset Maugham

I have the pleasure of teaching in two very special capacities this Spring and Summer.  First will be a visit to Ithaca, New York for the inaugural year of Ithaca College’s “New Voices Festival,” organized by the uber-talented Eleanor Henderson and Chris Holmes.  During what promises to be an exciting week, I will guest lecture and do readings and no doubt overuse the word amazing, as I am wont to do.  Please see my EVENTS page for more details.  

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A few years ago I spent some time writing in Ithaca and it quickly became one of my favorite places in the world.  My childhood best girlfriends came up to visit and we discovered truck graveyards, gleaming gyms, great food, friendly hippies, an Art parade, wineries, lakes and these things called “gorges,” which are…well, lovely.  Just look at this beautiful tractor!  (Please remember I am a city girl and we do not have beautiful tractors in the city.)

In July I’ll be returning to lead workshops for the third year of One Story’s Writers Workshop.  This intensive week of class, lectures and panels was my (and Michael Pollock’s) baby when I was the Associate Editor for One Story, and I love participating every year.  If you are an emerging (people hate the word emerging but I don’t mind it as I think we are all still emerging until we stop emerging, that is to say, die) writer who is wondering: how on earth do I put together a career out of these scribbles I love so much, consider joining us at The Center for Fiction this July.  For more information, here is a silly blog I wrote about it  after the completion of the first year, in which I overuse the word amazing.

From Dorothy Parker’s essay, “My Home Town”

McCall’s, January 1928

(With thanks to Margaret Zamos-Monteith for sending this to me)

It occurs to me that there are other towns. It occurs to me so violently that I say, at intervals, “Very well, if New York is going to be like this, I’m going to live somewhere else.” And I do — that’s the funny part of it. But then one day there comes to me the sharp picture of New York at its best, on a shiny blue-and-white Autumn day with its buildings cut diagonally in halves of light and shadow, with its straight neat avenues colored with quick throngs, like confetti in a breeze. Some one, and I wish it had been I, has said that “Autumn is the Springtime of big cities.” I see New York at holiday time, always in the late afternoon, under a Maxfield Parish sky, with the crowds even more quick and nervous but even more good-natured, the dark groups splashed with the white of Christmas packages, the lighted holly-strung shops urging them in to buy more and more. I see it on a Spring morning, with the clothes of the women as soft and as hopeful as the pretty new leaves on a few, brave trees. I see it at night, with the low skies red with the black-flung lights of Broadway, those lights of which Chesterton — or they told me it was Chesterton — said, “What a marvelous sight for those who cannot read!” I see it in the rain, I smell the enchanting odor of wet asphalt, with the empty streets black and shining as ripe olives. I see it — by this time, I become maudlin with nostalgia — even with its gray mounds of crusted snow, its little Appalachians of ice along the pavements. So I go back. And it is always better than I thought it would be.

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London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. There is excitement ever running its streets. Each day, as you go out, you feel the little nervous quiver that is yours when you sit in the theater just before the curtain rises. Other places may give you a sweet and soothing sense of level; but in New York there is always the feeling of “Something’s going to happen.” It isn’t peace. But, you know, you do get used to peace, and so quickly. And you never get used to New York.

Photo by my friend Cindy Augustine.  Find more of her work here.

The happiest surprise of publishing Safe as Houses has been the people who have reached out to me at readings and on all sorts of social media (is that how you pluralize that?) to tell me how they appreciated the stories.  “Sometimes You Break Their Hearts, Sometimes They Break Yours” seems to have particularly resonated with a few people who have, like me, gone through a period of time feeling like an alien on the earth.  I wrote that story during a difficult time when I needed to make myself laugh.  It was beyond worth it if it helps anyone else. Atherosclerosis best cialis prices can also increase the risk of other problems including aneurysm, stroke and peripheral artery disease. Clogging of these arteries causes ED and cardiac issues. buy levitra in canada There is a lot change sale of viagra especially in some kinds of medicines. The heartburn and discomfort are associated with other problem of stomach and esophageal. viagra cost in canada  Though I’ve written back and bent the ears of anyone who has reached out to me, I want to say again: your words are not lost on me.  I think you are so brave and I thank you for sharing your stories with me.  So many people seem to have had the experience of being ostracized for being different that I feel certain we “aliens” are never truly alone.