Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Memories and Meaning of Madeleine L'Engle

I'm still in New Jersey, not feeling strong, roaming my mother's bookcases. I'm actually looking for her copies of the Crosswicks journals, Madeleine L'Engle's essays on faith and family. L'Engle died last week. Her writing molded and cultivated me - not so much her science fiction but Meet the Austins and The Arm of the Starfish - which I read and absorbed as a teenager.

As an adult, I'd read those journals. And it was with Madeliene L'Engle that I began my adult writing endeavor - begun with a weekend with her in Connecticut in 1995. I got to spend a whole weekend with her, writing, talking about writing. I remember discussing with her different authors we felt did believable portrayals of genders not the authors' own. She started me on this path. I got in off the waiting list.

No luck finding the Crosswick's journals but I have pulled a few others off my mother's shelves.

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