Memoir | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

“Rosaries at the Grotto” A Chapter from my newly-published memoir, “Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India.”

Anita Mathias — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:04:39 +0000

Rosaries at the Grotto During May, “The Month of our Lady,” Father Jesus Calvo, the Spanish parish priest, corralled the entire Catholic community of Jamshedpur at the grotto of St. Mary’s Church: a cave constructed of rocks and mortar, overplanted with rambling roses, built because the Virgin appeared to Bernadette at a grotto in Lourdes. […]

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Thoughts on Writing my Just-published Memoir, & the Prologue to “Rosaries, Reading, Secrets”

Anita Mathias — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:30:44 +0000

Writing a memoir awakens fierce memories of the past. For the past is not dead; it’s not even past, as William Faulkner observed. So what does one do with this undead past? Forgive. Forgive, huh? Forgive. Let it go. Again and again. For, after all, this world is one of insistent goodness, insistent abundance. Flowers […]

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Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India. My new memoir

Anita Mathias — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 19:10:27 +0000

Friends, I have written a new memoir. I would be so grateful for your support. It is available wherever Amazon sells books, Amazon.com, of course, as well as Amazon.co.uk. Here are some reviews from distinguished writers A beautifully written account of a childhood. The textures, colours and, above all, the tastes of a particular […]

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Annie Dillard–An American Childhood

Anita Mathias — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Annie Dillard–An American Childhood A magical moment in a writer’s life is when you read a book–and realize the similarities between the writers’ subject matter, and your own raw material. You think, Hmm, I could do this. Then you look at the writer’s structure. Simple, huh? And think, I could do this. And so on. […]

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Patricia Hampl–A Romantic Education.

Anita Mathias — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:14:00 +0000

Patricia Hampl–A Romantic EducationOne of the magical moments in a writer’s life is the moment when you read something with a sense of recognition--I can do that too!! Seamus Heaney describes his unpleasant adventures with frog spawn and tadpoles in a poem called “The Death of a Naturalist.” –the naturalist he now knows he will […]

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Sara Suleri. Meatless Days. An engaging post-colonial memoir

Anita Mathias — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:19:00 +0000

SARA SULERI, MEATLESS DAYS:An engaging post-colonial memoirI have read this memoir twice, and really enjoyed it. Sara grew up in Lahore, Pakistan, the daughter of a gentle Welshwoman, and an irascible Pakistani father (who had left his first wife, and first cousin, to marry her).Her mother taught English, and presumably Sara grew up immersed in literature. […]

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A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean

Anita Mathias — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:48:00 +0000

A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean. I first heard about this book from the legendary editor Ted Solotaroff whom I met at the Squaw Valley Writers Conference, California. Ted had build a career discovering new young writers. I asked him if he knew of splendid writers who published their first books later in life. […]

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The Magical Moment in Which You Realize that You Are, or Will Be a Writer

Anita Mathias — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 19:44:00 +0000

The Magical Moment in Which You Realize that You Are, or Will Be a Writer Anne Sexton said she realized that she was a poet (I suppose she meant that she had the capacity to be a poet) while watching John Berryman read on TV. It really a magical moment, the sort of moment in […]

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Cider with Rosie–A Perfectly Constructed and Exquisitely Written Memoir

Anita Mathias — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 19:15:00 +0000

Cider with Rosie–A Perfectly Constructed and Exquisitely Written Memoir Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee I am in the second or third draft of my own memoir, and have finally solved the problem of structure, I believe. However, when you come across a memoir whose structure is sheer genius what can your jaw do but […]

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“Speak Memory” by Vladimir Nabokov

Anita Mathias — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:03:00 +0000

Speak Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov “Speak Memory” by Vladimir Nabokov is perhaps the most elegant memoir ever written. It is also my favourite memoir,and one of my favourite books. Nabokov’s prose is so beautiful, that all one can do is sigh. My copy has vanished somewhere in my piles of books in the course of […]

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