“The Coronation of Bobby”
Creative Nonfiction, Issue #55
“We each have different versions of ourselves, depending on the story. There’s one of me at camp, crying in the bathroom all night so my bunkmates wouldn’t see me homesick. Another time, I was a bully, putting a frog in a sad girl’s bed. And there’s the brave me who jumped off Split Rock Gorge four years straight until, at age twelve, a cowardly me stared too long at the rocks thirty feet below and backed away.'” Read more…
When the Nazis came, not everyone divided neatly into ‘good’ neighbors and ‘bad’
The Boston Globe, April 8, 2021
“His letter came from South Australia, out of the blue. He wanted to thank me for my book about Christian and Jewish neighbors in the tiny German village of Rexingen, where my father’s family was from. ‘Your father was right,’ his letter assured me, ‘we all got along before Hitler.'” Read more…
“The Revolving Room”
Good Neighbors, Bad Times Revisited, University of Nebraska Press, March 2021
Mimi Schwartz is an award-winning essayist and nonfiction writer who has addressed some of our thorniest issues. In this excerpt from the book, she explores what happens when two friends land on opposite sides of history—and try to talk about it. Read here…
“Fix-it Fantasy”
Persimmon Tree, December 2018
“When you’re married for fifty years to a man who fancies himself Mr. Fix-it, you don’t learn how to hang pictures, unclog dehumidifiers, or replace toilet seats. So when, after a weekend of guests that included two uber-bathroom-going toddlers, you discover that your toilet seats now roll like ships on high sea, you need to do something.” Read more…
“In the Land of Double Narrative”
Tikkun, May 2011
“We are in the Olive Room of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem for a meeting with two history teachers — an Israeli and a Palestinian — who have written a double narrative of this land. The Israeli, Eyal Naveh, in his open-necked shirt, has a casual toughness you find in many Israelis over sixty, yet with keen, blue-grey eyes that are empathetic despite having fought seven wars to defend his right to stand here.” Read more…
