I Will Offer Virtual Creative Writing Classes This Summer

 

Year of the Fire Horse The Lunar New Year Party at Fountain House

 

Fountain House Celebrates the Lunar New Year in Style!: The Research and Communications Unit Join Together to Enjoy the Holiday!

 

By Elizabeth Levine

Did you know we are in the Year of the Fire Horse? Do you know what that might mean for you? According to FH Communications member, Barry this is the year to push through and experience transformation. He explained, “Last Year was the Year of the Snake and the shedding of your skin- the behaviors or routines that no longer serve you well. But this year, when we combine the Year of the Horse, with the fire element, we are faced with the opportunity for intense passion and rapid transformations and living your dreams.”

This is one of the many interesting facts I learned about the Lunar Year when on Friday, February 20^th, the Communications and Research Units threw a joint Lunar New Year party at Fountain House. Staff and members feasted on Chinese delicacies- rice crackers, lychees, Chinese hard candies in a myriad of flavors. The tables were adorned in red and gold tablecloths and the red paper plates had dragons in their designs. We played Lunar New Year jeopardy with three columns 1. History 2. Customs 3. Cultural Symbols and Decorations

As a member of the Communications Unit I am proud to report that the Communications team, comprised of members like Safi, Elizabeth, Noni and others, triumphed over the Research Unit in this fun but competitive round of Jeopardy. But both teams learned interesting facts about the Chinese New Year,

              For example, did you know that firecrackers are used for the Lunar New Year to ward off evil spirits? That the Peony, my favorite flower, is actually the Chinese flower of prosperity]. Or did you know that the Chinese avoid the colors Black and White during the Lunar New Year to avoid bad luck? Red envelopes with coins are dispersed for good luck for the Chinese New Year, which is also known as the Spring Festival. After today’s blizzard, I think the entire FH community is ready for Spring.

I found myself seated next to Lawrence Applebaum and Saverio Penza, a FH Gallery artist renowned for his handmade ceramics on display at the FH Gallery, his photographs, which often appear in the Fountain Pen, and his help with layout and design of the Fountain Times. He told me “I was blessed to find Fountain House.” Many FH members, including myself, concur with this sentiment! Festive members from both units who enjoyed the party and the Chinese treats. Connor, our Communications archivist, and Matt from the Research Unit, helped with the decorations-two beautiful red papier-mache dragon heads

While Matt constructed the dragons, it was Noni from Communications who adorned the cardboard figures with beautiful red fabric, creating the perfect décor for our Lunar New Year Party. Many participants came dressed in red in honor of the holiday.

Many members and staff carried the spirit of the Lunar New Year Party into their weekend. Noelle from the Communications Unit found herself drawn to Chinatown, where she enjoyed watching senior citizens play board games and practice Tai Chi in groups. “There was such a sense of community. I was thinking of Mae and her energy as I watched people interact.” Since one of the FH goals/principles is to reduce social isolation for members living with mental illness, what better way to create community than by throwing a party, making decorations, combining units for cross-socialization, and learning more about a holiday that we as Westerners might not have known much about?

Like all FH parties, I left with great enthusiasm and relief to know that the Year of the Snake is behind us and that the Year of the Fire Horse has officially begun! Maybe it is because I am the Year of the Dragon, but the combination of Fire (from the four elements) with the Year of the Horse, seemed especially fortuitous.

For example, The Year of the Fire Horse raises some profound questions for introspection. What are your dreams or intentions for this upcoming year What is your intense passion? What do you need to live your dreams and “push through” to make sure these dreams are realized? For me, as I retire this month after 40 years in the non-profit sector, first in public health and then as a college professor, this is a year of incredible change and adjustment. But I believe it is change for the better. Now that I am not working full-time at a job I hated, I can spend more time at Fountain House, become more involved with the Gallery and Studio, learn to make floral arrangements, soap, and candles in the Home and Garden Unit and devote myself exclusively to publishing my novel, “All That Remains”, which I have been working on for the past five years. Through a generous Fountain House educational scholarship, I worked with Alexander Scott Hess, a Gotham Writers' Workshop-published author, to review my manuscript and guide me through the long, difficult process of submitting my manuscript to small LGBTQ+ independent presses, with the hope of finding a literary agent. Many is the day I want to throw my hands up in the air and say it is too difficult, I am too old, people don’t read books anymore, the publishing industry is changing so rapidly, I can’t keep up,  and give up on my dreams to publish my fiction for others to read. As a published poet, this shift to writing fiction poses new artistic challenges. Perhaps I am shedding my skin as only a poet at the end of the Year of the Snake, and undergoing a “rapid transformation” into the kingdom of fiction. The one thing I can say for sure is that I approach this year with intense passion and the desire to become more involved with the myriad programs offered by Fountain House, including the Silver Center.

 

Samsara 2025: Interview with Mark Dendy, Fountain House Gallery Artist

 

Portrait of an Artist: The Buddha and His Many Incarnations

A Conversation with Mark Dendy

By Elizabeth Levine

When I first met artist and performer Mark Dendy, it was in his natural habitat: the bright, buzzing space of Fountain House Gallery during our annual Small Works Festival. We were two strangers drawn together by a painting—one of those serendipitous encounters that happen when art opens a door. Mark, surrounded by color and possibility, radiated the kind of curiosity and generosity that instantly signals here is someone who lives deeply in his work.

Mark has been a member of Fountain House for approximately three years;  his connection to the Gallery began with a referral from his therapist, who suggested Mark join the FH Studio when she learned Mark was an artist.  Since appearing in his first FH Exhibit in September of 2024, Mark has become one of the Gallery’s most prolific contributors and his paintings, listed in parenthesis have appeared in the following FH exhibitions Inside My Mind, (Brain Freeze), Biff! Bam! Pow! (Fascism Is the New Kryptonite,) Life’s a Party (The Soiree) Reinvention, (Circular Field) and the Gallery’s 25th Anniversary Exhibition (The Parlour). In just over two years, he has participated in seven shows and sold more than sixteen original works. I am the proud owner of one of them—Samsara (2025), a gift for my son Jake that continues to reveal new layers of meaning.

A Practice Rooted in Mindfulness

Mindfulness is one of the pervasive threads that runs through Mark’s work. “I am a secular Buddhist,” he told me. “I follow the philosophy, not the religion. Buddha is one of my heroes. In Buddhism, Samsara refers to the totality of human experience—joy and suffering, hatred/compassion, ignorance/wisdom, war and peace, light and shadow. It’s accepting the bad with the good, doing the best we can to live a productive, meaningful, compassionate life.”

His piece Samsara 2025 embodies this worldview. Built from photographs he shot in Times Square—“the epitome of Samsara”—the work layers digital collage with hand‑painted elements using a giclée technique. “I did this intuitively, not realizing there was a formal art movement in the 1970s using similar methods.” Mark explained

A Multidisciplinary Artist with numerous and diverse creative accomplishments

Mark’s artistic journey began long before he picked up a paintbrush. An OBIE and Bessie Award–winning choreographer, playwright, and performer, he spent forty years shaping avant‑garde theater, dance, opera, and film. His film The Age of Anxiety screened at thirty‑five international festivals. But the pandemic shifted his priorities. “I realized I couldn’t maintain that level of involvement, especially the fundraising,” he said. “I wanted something different—a solitary artistic practice.” Visual art became that sanctuary.

A Childlike Curiosity in His Approach to Creating Unique Works of Art

“When I first started drawing, the instructor told us to draw like we did as children. So, I would close my eyes, switch hands, let the line go crooked. It wasn’t about the finished product. It was about freedom.” That freedom is evident in works like Ladybug Dance, created during an animal‑themed session at the Fountain House Silver Center. “I closed my eyes and kept making dots,” Mark laughed. “I do these chance but controlled experiments.”

A Volunteer, Advocate, and Community Builder

Mark’s presence at Fountain House extends far beyond his artwork. He volunteers regularly—at the Fountain House Gallery and participates in weekly workshops. At least once a month he works at the Gallery and loves meeting people so that visitors can better understand their art.  This commitment is both artistic and communal. “I enjoy working in a group,” he said. “There are so many wonderfully talented and dedicated artists in the community. They inspire me and keep me on my toes.” Equally of note is his upcoming participation in a joint venture with Bethlem Gallery in the United Kingdom and will contribute to this exhibition in early spring, 2026.

A Fluid, Expansive Art Practice that Incorporates The Political

Art is not just a craft for Mark—it is a stabilizing force. Along with his two beloved dogs, Ruby and Margot, Mark finds peace and healing in the creative process, incorporating the sinister realities of the current state with the world with beautiful, colorful images of the Buddha-contrasting the lightness of mindfulness with the darkness of the political climate. Certain works are deliberately political in nature. For example, Mark singled out one of his paintings in the Small Works exhibit “Boy KISS Boy”, explaining that he felt this image was important in a moment in history when LGBTQ rights are under attack.

The Many Incarnations of Mark Dendy

Created in an atmosphere of play and inquiry, Mark Dendy's process is an investigation into story and color - loaded with psychological imagery. Their work is infused with theatricality and movement where social commentary lurks just beneath the surface. Juxtaposing multiple styles, mediums and perspectives; abstraction, neo surrealism and pop art meet in a neon lit alley. For Mark Dendy is an artist of movement—whether onstage, on canvas, or in the digital realm. His work is theatrical, political, spiritual, and deeply human. It is shaped by mindfulness, animated by play, and grounded in a lifetime of creative exploration.

In his hands, art becomes a form of enlightenment—not a destination, but a journey through every shade of experience. A neon‑lit alley where the Buddha meets pop culture, memory, and the childlike joy of making marks in the dark.

 

I am offering tutoring services- English, French and Spanish

 

Poetry of Grief- Jerusalem Post

 “The Poetry of Grief”

By Elizabeth Levine, M.A., M.P.H, M.F.A.

 

 

 

It is said that there is nothing worse than losing a child. This I know is true. My daughter Charlotte died on January 3, 2009, for no medical reason. No medical reason. When I rise in the morning and open my eyes to the flat grey of a winter’s day, these are the first words I hear. When I fall asleep at night, it is her face that flashes before my eyes before they shut.

What then to do with all this grief? For me, the answer came from writing both poetry and creative non-fiction. I would stay awake all night, night after night, after she died and write and write and write, because when I went to bed at night I would hear her cry.

For poets, we have long known the therapeutic value of writing to heal trauma and we often say, “Writing our way back home.” Research conducted by Dr. James W. Pennebaker, PH.D. at the University of Texas at Austin’s Psychology Department in his book Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal has proven empirically that writing about trauma and emotional upheaval improves health outcomes and helps patients recover from traumatic events.

But for many writers who have lost children, we already knew that expressive writing was therapeutic. In particular, the Poet, New York University Professor and Guggenheim Foundation staff member Edward Hirsch has transcended grief in his book of poems, Gabriel, “in which a short life, a bewildering death ,and the unanswerable sorrow of a father come together in such a sustained elegy. This unabashed sequence speaks directly from Hirsch’s heart to our own, without sentimentality. From its opening lines-“The funeral director opened the coffin/And there he was alone/From the waist up”- Hirsch’s account is poignantly direct and open to the strange vicissitudes and tricks of grief.”

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/finding-words

As an English Professor at William Paterson University and Montclair State University, I always teach my students two of his poems, “Execution” and an excerpt from Gabriel, page 73

I had the personal good fortune to study with Edward Hirsch at the Distinguished Poetry Series on October 3, 2015 at the Poetry Center of Passaic County Community College, www.poetrycenterpccc.cpm, which is directed by the renowned poet and champion of Poetry and the Arts, Director Maria Mazziotti Gillian, www.mariagillan.com, whom I have also had the honor of studying with.

We spoke briefly in the dim lighting of the Hamilton House, where the mood outside the airy classroom is lugubrious, as though so much sorrow and so many poets have written there about their own losses and their own healing.

In fact, Hirsch and I exchange hugs and he inscribes in my copy of Gabriel: A Poem “ For Elizabeth, with a shared sense of grief. May poetry help us.” For Hirsch, myself and countless others, writing poetry allows us to “enter the broad stream of human grief and raise in us the strange hope, even consolation, that we find in the writer’s act of witnessing and transformation.

Some nights, I dream of Charlotte, of Gabriel, of Edward Hirsch and I holding hands as if we were lovers for many decades, bound by the same grief; I dream of Brooklyn, where I was born and where Hirsch lives, and I think of the primal need to go home, to a place and time before our children died, where we once were happy and innocent and knew not what the future had in store for us. In other words, I dream of writing my way back home.

 

For those of you who are interested in the therapeutic value of writing, I encourage you to subscribe to my online newsletter “The Writer’s Rant” at https://paper.li/f-1453218661#/ or facebook/thewritersrant

 

Empowerment: Witing Our Way Back Home

 I am a sixty-two year-old trilingual poet and author living with disabilities. My novel "All That Remains" deals with issues of trauma and resiliency, as does much of my poetry. Most of my poetry addresses themes of mental illness, substance abuse and grief/bereavement, following the death of my daughter Charlotte Clear. I use her name as a pseudonym because in Judaism, we say, "May her memory be for blessing, and I do not want her name to be forgotten or erased. She died for no medical reason, which made the grieving process more protracted and painful.

I returned to creative writing following her death, no longer capable or, perhaps, more accurately, willing to continue my career as the author of scientific technical writing as the Founder and Executive Director of ECQ Group, Inc., a small minority non-profit consulting firm specializing in public health. Instead of writing grants for millions of dollars to protect the most vulnerable and fragile of our populations, such as people living with HIV/AIDS, the mentally ill/homeless/, inmates, undocumented immigrants and LGBTQ clients, I found myself entering the fragmented, dysfunctional and woefully inadequate mental health service industry, now as a client of services, rather than a provider or funder of such social service safety-net services.

Speaking from, own personal and professional experience, anti-depressants, therapy, grief counseling, outpatient trauma therapy and one voluntary inpatient hospitalization did more harm than good in my journey back to wellness. On the contrary, it was the therapeutic exercise of writing my way back home that produced my strongest work. To that end, I am working on a curricula "Poetry as Sanctuary" in which I combine my M.P.H. and M.F.A. degrees to reach traumatized populations across multiple modalities, but with a primary focus of bereaved parents and siblings. It is my sincere and profound belief that it is in telling our stories and our losses and our struggles, we empower ourselves. "Empowerment" has become a word that has left a bitter taste in my mouth; no matter how well-intentioned service providers and therapists might be, survivors, in company with one another, are truly the only individuals capable of "empowerment". Through writing, we empower ourselves, moving from the darkness back into the light.

 

Point of View- "Gay Geography"

 Point of View- Gay Geography

My editor advises me that the reader needs more information about the narrator, her intentions, and what drives her into the company of gay men. I cringe. To me, it is painfully obvious why Eliza doesn’t like straight men. I am Eliza.

I resent his suggestion that I dig deeper into my subconscious to better articulate why I feel safer in a gay environment than a straight one. For me, this is a therapeutic issue, not a character development problem. Although he tells me the writing is beautiful, he wants more information. Why do I always feel that people ask of me more than I am willing or able to give? Whatever setting, dialogue, scene, character development, or narrative arc, so obvious to me, as the writer, is unclear to the reader.

Know your audience. In my first novella, “Gay Geography”, my audience is the large tent of LGBTQ readers and straight readers who are intimately familiar with gay life. Perhaps they have a sibling, a parent, a child who is queer. Perhaps they are queer and have not made peace with it, or are simply too young or too repressed to know who they are in the world, whether that be straight or gay. In the end, the only thing that matters is that my audience is familiar with and respectful of gay life, because that is the world I grew up in, that is where I feel most myself, and therefore, most at home.

Still, I have paid for his critique, and I need to at least appear willing to consider his suggestions, when what I really feel is irritation. He is a gay man; he of all people should understand why a fag hag is an integral member of any gay family and deserves her place at the table. I resent defending my right to sit down at the kitchen table in Rehoboth Beach, surrounded by my five gay roommates. I earned my place at that table, and I belong there. Why do I have to delve into Eliza, the narrator’s motivation to eat at that table?

I go through the pretense of being open- minded to his editorial critique. He suggests I change the POV from third person to first person singular, the standard pronoun of all memoirs. I explain that the manuscript was originally memoir, but to protect my family’s privacy, I have spent an entire year manually changing and double-checking every pronoun and fictionalizing the story. So, that suggestion is a rule out. Then he compliments me on the writing and how poetic it is. I explain that I am a published poet. Then he dares to suggest I rewrite it as a prose poem- a form of poetry I dislike. So that, too, is a rule out. His last suggestion I take begrudgingly, and I write a two-page single- spaced explanation of why Eliza loves her gay family and avoids straight men whenever possible. To be responsive to his advice, I painstakingly take that 2-page synopsis and change just those two pages from third person singular to I. And when I re-read that explanation, shifted to the pronoun I, then and only then, do I remember to cry.

The Middle of Nowhere: Tivoli, New Yok, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park

 What a great escape! An artist's retreat at the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, New York. I would highly recommend this retreat for dancers, writers, composers, actors and visual artists. Check the website  www.kaatsbaan.org for 2026 Retreat dates and registration.

Through a generous scholarship from the Fountain House Gallery, I was lucky to be selected as one of five artists to spend a November weekend in the Hudson Valley doing what I love- writing and editing my novel All That Remains.

I arrived on Friday and found a lovely Italian restaurant, and ate lunch with my translator, Theresa, who served as my chauffeur and adult supervisor. "I brought you a chocolate protein shake," she told me, as we smoked one last cigarette before driving the hour and a half to our destination- a 153-acre estate for artists who wanted a weekend away from the daily grind to find inspiration in their respective fields.

When Alice, the Program Manager at Kaatsbaan, told me I was the only writer, I started to panic. The night before I left I had a massive anxiety attack when I discovered I would spend the weekend with dancers, performing artists, and a composer. Suddenly, I had visions of going to summer camp, but with children half my age. Was I simply too old for an Artists retreat with such creative, youthful artists? Would I have to "mute" the "kra-kra" button we poets are so familiar with? Would I have to be "normal" in the company of such talent? I shut my laptop off, packed my suitcase with six packs of Winston Select 100's, nicotine gum, nicotine patches, folders of poetry, a flashlight, and three changes of clothes. Alice had warned me that it was COLD and DARK in the Hudson Valley. I am not a fan of COLD or DARK and again, I briefly thought to myself WTF was I thinking? This could be the perfect location for a manic episode or a relapse!

But I was determined. I had been working on this novel for five years when the copyeditor I hired told me it was not publication-ready. This plunged me into an artistic depression, and I did not touch the manuscript for a year. However, I wasn't making a living as a poet, and I knew my best chance of finding employment, if not fame, as a fiction writer would be- that's right- to publish my 250 page novel. 

Writing the first draft of the manuscript felt like birthing a giraffe. I found a literary agent who read the novel. She told me that "it is beautifully written but needs more work." We need to know more about the narrator and her relationship to her family." Hell, no! I was NOT going there.

So now a literary agent and a copyeditor from Simon &Schuster both stated, albeit in different tones, that my novel needed more work. But who the hell wants to do more work?

I came to Kaatsbaan with five separate folders and the willingness to DO MORE WORK. I wasn't getting any younger, and although I had two poetry chapbooks published, The Ribbon Around the Bomb" and "God Doesn't Live at Our House Anymore" published under my pseudonym Charlotte Clear, I needed to find motivation, if not inspiration and dive back into the novel. Procrastination and sloth dodged every step. I vacillated from thinking "It's never too late" to "I will never finish this". From optimism, if you will, to abject despair. This is the writing life. It is solitary and unforgiving-both muse and master. It is like running a marathon without water, leaving me permanently dehydrated.

It took coming to literally "The Middle of Nowhere" to get my writing groove on. After a lovely dinner with the five other artists at the "Farmhouse" where everyone drank wine except for me, I actually began to work. I realized that the novel was overly ambitious in scope, location (it covered five countries) and multiple storylines. It read like an ADD self-help manual combined with a written confession and a touch of Mea Culpa. UGH. I felt like an ice sculptor chipping away at a larger than life block of ice, uncertain as to what I wanted to create or how I would get there. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted the writing to be beautiful, poetic and I wanted my novel to mean something, but what, exactly?

And then the moment of clarity came. I had tried to do to much, all at once, and the result was chaos. I had to put order into an overyly ambitios manuscript. I was trying to tell too many stories simultaneously. I needed less, not more.

After I recognized my own creative tendency for overkill, I pondered how I could simplify my project. Then it hit me. Divide the manuscript into four separate, but interrelated novellas, each with its own narrative arc. Easier to say, harder to do, but at least I felt like I had an editorial "road map" of how to approach the editing process.

I started with the novella about the AIDS epidemic, entitled "Gay Geography" because this chapter had already been published by MAPLiterary, (www.mapliterary.org), William Paterson University's English Department online journal. I culled three chapters out of the original 18-chapter manuscript that focused on my experience living with gay roommates at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. What ensued was a four chapter, fifty page novella: Chapter 1, "Gay Geography", Chapter 2, "Strange but Not Dangerous", Chapter 3 "We The Living", and Chapter 4, "The Inheritance of Pronouns". There is an Epilogue and a Prologue, which might need to be tweaked in the other novellas. Or perhaps keeping the same Epilogue and Prologue for all four novellas allows the reader to see the connection between the four novellas, all of which are written from the point of view of Eliza, the unreliable narrator.

For I am nothing, if not an unreliable narrator, here in the Middle of Nowhere, the gorgeous Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, where I have managed to be on my best behavior when fraternising with the other younger, talented, successful artists. We are all staying in the Dancer's Inn. My room sleeps five- I could have brought my family with me. But, on the contrary, it is the silence and the isolation which afforded me the time and the space to focus and settle down to work. It is Saturday morning, and I have read Gay Geography and made final edits. I added a poem and a table of contents for the novella. Transferring the handwritten (I am a dinosaur and can't edit on the screen) to the computer version is tedious. I am up to page 10, and I will be lucky if I finish this task by the time we leave tomorrow afternoon. But I am grateful I came, and I would highly recommend a weekend retreat in Tivoli, New YorkKaatsbaan Cultural Park Artists Retreat  for all artists who need to step outside of their daily routine and find a beautiful, supportive environment to help them forge ahead with their creative project- whether it be dance, musical theatre, acting, composing and yes, writing and/or editing.

Reading the Names

Here is the poem that I wrote about twenty years of working in the field of HIV/AIDS and the collective trauma that we have all experienced from losing so many friends. I was watching the reading of the names on 9/11 and it triggered the association of when, at the beginning of the epidemic, we would read the names of the people who died that year on December 1, World AIDS Day. Obviously, this was early in the epidemic when the list was short enough that it was possible to do so.

I lived in New York on 9/11 and my brother and sister in law worked in the World Trade Center that day. I was pregnant with my second son, Alex, and every time I took the subway, I thought, this could be it. There was an anthrax scare in New York at that time as well. I often think that those of us who were living in NYC when the World Trade Center fell also have a collective PTSD from having lived through that experience. We became kinder to one another. Tragedy does that, forms unusual bonds that spread, like a spider web, across unfamiliar terrain.

The poem is long; I will probably make it into a few separate, shorter poems, but that is my process, I write and then I edit.

I will post the poem as a separate entry.,

Shloshim

Shloshim

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http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/shloshim/

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God Doesn't Live at Our House Anymore by Charlotte Clear- Back Cover

This is the book jacket photo for my memoir What Remains. An adaptation of the memoir is being produced as a play entitled "And She Was There"

Check out the blog site goddoesntliveatourhouseanymore.wordpress.com

Operation Embrace 2012

MOVIE.m4v

What It Takes Out of Me To Teach Freshman College Writing as an Adjunct Professor

Happy New Year Class! Again, I want to congratulate all of you on your portfolios, which were excellent, and many of you received A's, even if your work this semester was previously graded as B's or C's. You can pick up your portfolios in the Adjunct Faculty office in the Hutzinger Building, Room  136.Remember that I told you that 1500, Experiences in Literature, would be harder than 1100. I say that based on my experience teaching 1500 at MSU, not WPU. I have found that students struggle with writing about literature more than writing about non-fiction essays. So below you will find some advice, and some anonymous lines from your portfolio's that made me happy. I want to thank Austin for helping me make this video, which I am attaching. Now you know I am not good at technology, so if it doesn't work, let me know, and I will try to disseminate it some other way. These are your words. Now that you have found them, I expect you to use them. I also wanted to mention that I noticed that two of my favorite Professors, Dr. Chris Weaver, and Dr. Phil Cioffari, are teaching 1500. I know several of you tried to register for my 1500-26 section on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11-12:15, and you told me the class was full. I would have loved the chance to work with you for a full year, rather than just one semester, but I wanted to let you know that if you happen to have Dr. Weaver or Dr. Cioffari, you are in wonderful hands. I have not taken a class with the other professors, so they are probably great also. So here are my final words, mi gente:Professor Levine's pet peeves:1. Lack of synonyms/repetition- remember to use the thesarus function under Tools in the drop down menu in Word. Essays should use more sophisticated vocabulary than what we speak.2. Avoid the verb "get". Writing is a special occasion of language; it should not sound as if we were speaking, the vocabulary must be sophisticated.3. Writers don't speak or talk; they analyze, suggest, discuss, present, hypothesize, argue, propose, state, explore, etc etc etc. Use the thesarus!4. Avoid the passive voice. Life is not a passive project; it demands action verbs, preferably in the present tense.
5. Get rid of clutter in your writing. When you can find one word instead of eight, do it!6. Introductory and concluding paragraphs should be five sentences, unless you write for the New York Times and you are consciously making a stylistic choice to not do so.7. What is your thesis statement? Can I find it? Do I have to play hide and go seek to uncover it? This will make your professors, regardless of discipline, extremely unhappy.
8. Do you provide three solid arguments (also called evidence or warrants, depending on who is the professor?)9. Are your arguments sound, i.e. backed up with data or quotes from the original text? Or is this your personal opinion with no statistics or quotes to prove your thesis?10. How are your transitions? Do they introduce the next paragraph? Are they smooth? Does the organization of paragraphs flow logically or poetically?11. Someone, everyone, nobody,everybody etc. is SINGULAR. Look at the last word, also called suffix, ONE and BODY. Someone is not paying attention. Subject/verb agreement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!12. Pronoun agreement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!13. Point of view. Pick a pronoun and stick to it!!!! Most professors like third person singular- HE, SHE, ONE etc.14. Review MLA citations for Works Cited formatting and How to Integrate Quotes, both under Unit 4 course materials. This is an ongoing issue that you will need to remember as you go into 1500.15. The comma is your friend, and there is beauty in the semi-colon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Each professor will have his or her pet peeves, the aforementioned 15 are mine. Each professor will approach grading based on what is his or her priority in terms of what he/she believes is the most important skill(s) to improve your writing. For example, transitions, formatting, counterarguments, quoting sources might be the most important criteria for Professor A, whereas my focus was on teaching you how to find, craft and support your thesis statement and make a convincing argument. As a poet, every word counts, and I want your writing to be beautiful, powerful, and moving. If I had a PhD in Rhetoric, (the study of writing), I might prioritize warrants, MLA formatting, analyzing rhetorical styles etc. etc. Both academic paradigms are equally valid. If on the syllabus, you see that your new professor is a Dr. XXX and nor Professor XXX, it is reasonable to assume that citation and formatting and research will weigh heavily in how your work is received. Justifiably so.Ok, here are some of the highlights from your portfolios: "Although my work likely aren't the strongest one's you'll read, hard work was still put into them. I'm not alone in saying this class was very helpful and that it has helped us to grown not only in our writing, but AS PEOPLE TOO." grammar errors galore, but COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF MY GOALS IN DESIGNING THE COURSE THE WAY I DID."Some common issues I had in my entire four essays were point of view, repetition of words, long paragraphs, commas, awkward phrasing, sentence structure, transitions, strong introductory and concluding sentences". Extra credit: how many of my 15 pet peeves did this student learn to address in her writing?"Being a writer can be hard, but it's worth it as you make it meaningful" THAT MADE PROFESSOR LEVINE VERY HAPPY!"Now when I'm writing future essays, I could always refer back to my peer reviews and professors comments" (No apostrophes!! But, by far the prettiest portfolio, and the student who best understood the value of peer review. YOU MUST TAKE PEER REVIEW SERIOUSLY! IF A CLASSMATE SUBMITS A FIRST DRAFT AND YOU, AS A REVIEWER, CAN'T FIND THE THESIS STATEMENT, CHANCES ARE, IT ISN'T THERE. DON'T JUST SAY THESIS STATEMENT NEEDS WORK, OR IS WEAK, TRY TO PUSH YOURSELF TO USE YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND SUGGEST HOW THIS DRAFT COULD BE IMPROVED. I GAVE GRADES FOR YOUR PEER REVIEW OF OTHER STUDENT'S WORK BECAUSE I WANTED YOU TO UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT REVISION IS AND I WANTED YOU TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. I DOUBT YOU WILL GET A GRADE ON YOUR PEER REVIEW WORK NEXT SEMESTER, BUT AS A COURTESY AND RESPONSIBILITY TO YOUR CLASSMATES, DO NOT PRETEND AN ESSAY IS STRONG IF IT IS WEAK. I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO HURT ANYONE'S FEELINGS, BUT CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN SOMEONE ELSE'S GRADE."Levine puts a lot of time and effort correcting our papers, which helped me write papers that have a clear message and better vocabulary." TELL ME ABOUT IT. IF I HAVE TO PULL AN ALL NIGHTER TO GET YOUR SECOND DRAFTS BACK TO YOU, OR TO SUBMIT GRADES, YOU CAN PULL AN ALL NIGHTER IMPROVING YOUR ESSAYS AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, MAKING DEADLINES! COLLEGE IS THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG ENOUGH TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT. IT IS MUCH HARDER WHEN YOU ARE MY AGE. IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN TO. OF COURSE, IF YOU DON'T PROCRASTINATE, YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT."I have learned a lot throughout the semester that has definitely made a positive impact on my writing as long as a positive impact on my education." That should be the goal of every class: to improve your critical thinking skills and make you a more well- rounded student and citizen."I would recommend this course, specifically this instructor, to anyone who meets the requirements." I liked this concluding sentence to the Writer's Memo because it is a question I wrestle with. Should all incoming freshmen take college writing, or should some students take an introductory class that focuses on grammar and basic writing skills, rather than asking students who are not academically prepared for college writing to meet a standard they cannot reach, not because they are not capable, but because they have not been taught the nuts and bolts of college level writing. Don't have the answer to this one; it is what we call a "rhetorical question.""I want to conclude by expressing my gratitude to such an amazing instructor, Professor Levine. You have helped me improve my writing skills a great deal." My response: Then why didn't you come to class more often. LOL. I don't teach for the money, the glory or the power. I teach because of you. If you need me next semester, I will be in Raubinger 203, Tuesdays and Thursdays 11-12:15. Feel free to come by at THE END OF CLASS.I am attempting to attach two files, the video, and a personal essay or editorial I wrote on vacation. It is not an argumentative, thesis-driven essay. Nonetheless, there is a thesis. Can you find it? I will give you a hint. It is where you would least expect it.Good luck next semester. Go into all of your classes with the following attitude: I may not like this course, but I am going to learn something anyway.We have come to know one another (SINGULAR). You probably realize that I am not a religious person. Nonetheless, in Judaism, it teaches that if I save one person, I have saved the world. Therefore (transition, moving from one sentence to the next), I want you to be awake, cognizant, and engaged. I want you to be able to recognize injustice and realize that you, as a person, can help others who are suffering. You have that power. Now you have the words you need to do something about it. If you can save one person, or help one person, than you have made the world a better place, even if as a writer you receive a "C" as a grade.I also encourage all of you to think about taking Creative Writing. My understanding is that it is a Writing Intensive Course. It is a different kind of writing. It is my favorite class to teach. Find the undergraduate literary journal, Zietgeist, google the definition if you don't know it. Think about submitting your work. Everyone of us has a story to tell that is unique and valuable. Use your words, share your poetry, fiction or personal essay, and know that your experience can help someone else. Find whatever it is that gives your life meaning and never let it go.
 Be well. Elizabeth Levine.

I am attaching a video we made in class. Hopefully it goes through; without Austin, I may have screwed it up. Your grades will be posted to blackboard tonight or tomorrow.                

Rabbi Buchdahl at White House Chanukah Party (Dec 17 2014)

Surviving an Emergency Apendectomy in the British Virgin Islands, December 31, 2014

1. A photo says a thousand words. Relaxing with the kids at Peebles Hospital, Tortola, British Virgin Island
2. Facebook Elizabeth Levine, Wayne NJ

 

 

The Writer's Rant

Happy New Year From The Gypsies!!!!!

THE WRITER’S RANT: ISSUE 1 December 31, 2014

Happy New Year friends, family, colleagues, classmates, associates, Fire Island cousins, etc.

I wanted to share a story about the power and danger of the internet,  on Facebook , in particular. On Christmas eve at 1:00 a.m., I started to feel sick. I called the front desk and asked if there was a doctor on the island. The staff said no.

I asked "What do I do if I am dying?" He said, "We can send a rescue boat." My children were sleeping. My parents were sleeping. My Aunt was sleeping. I did not know where the hospital was in Tortola, nor did I know if I could survive the boat ride. I waited. I tried sleeping on my side, my back, I applied pressure. By then the pain was unbearable. I thought of the hospitals I had worked in in La Paz and Kathmandu and the suffering of others. I told myself, I have had three Cesarian Sections, I know what pain is, I can do this. I waited eight hours until the first ferry off the island was running. At 7:30 am I crawled to my parents room and told them: "I need to leave the island and go to the hospital." 14 hours after the pain, I received emergency surgery at the charity hospital on Tortola, which was the only hopsital open on a holiday. 

Context is everything. The Peebles Hospital was closing and moving to a new facility on Monday. I was admitted on Saturday and operated on at 6:pm. The laparoscopic theater had already been packed up, meaning I was going to have a nice scar and a harder recovery. I asked for local anesthesia and was told that I had to have general anesthesia.

At that point I looked at the Nigerian surgeon whose beautiful face had the scars typical of tribal ritual, thought of my friend Tokes, who spoke at my daughter's funeral, and said, "Just take it out".

Post surgery, I posted on my personal facebook page that I had an emergency, accute appendicitis and I had survived the surgery. When I came home to recover, I posted a commentary about the sub standard and dangerous conditions I encountered on the ward where I was sent after surgery. That email, directed to my friends and family back home, was then posted by my friend David Blacklock, who has lived in Tortola for ten years. Without telling me, he posted my experience on the British Virgin Island Community Board, and the incident and the critique of the hospital conditions went viral and within the first five minutes 17 local residents had posted their experiences of receiving substandard medical care at the indigent care hospital.

How did I find out about this? I was speaking to a Dominican store owner and we were talking about the Universidad in Santo Domingo, the oldest Medical School in the Western Hemisphere. I have worked in the Dominican Republic and knew the quality of the medical care there vis a vis my experience in the BVI. I said you know, I just had my appendix out here in the BVI.  He said,

Oh my God, you're the girl who had her Appendix removed at Peebles, and he repeated for me word for word the post I had put on my facebook page.

I went to meet my parents for dinner at the Dove, where the waitress and I chatted as I smoked on the deck. She, too, had heard the story, and she told me that the new hospital, which opened on Monday, cost $1 million dollars per bed. So future emergency services in the new facility  would be a completely different experience than the one I had.

Nevertheless, when the Chief of the Hospital and the Medical Director posted comments in response to my post, I felt that a follow up email, with some context, was necessary. I am in the process of drafting that response.

I came to Peters Island to recover from a brutal semester of teaching and to gear up to teach Experiences in Literature when I return. I brought with me grants that I was working on for MAP Literary, the online literary journal where I interned this past semester as the first MFA intern.I highly recommend the magazine, www.MAPLiterary.org; we accept submissions in poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction, scholarly articles and fine arts. 

While I had work to do on my spring syllabus, grants to finish, and a job interview to prepare for, I did not anticipate losing three days and a vestigial organ. It has moved up the launch of the anonymous blog that I have been working on called "The Writer's Rant" which will be written under a pseudonym to ensure that both the guilty and innocent were protected. I envisioned the content as a interactive commentary at the intersection of three thankless worlds: that of adjunct faculty, that of grantwriting, and that of the writer who must work and raise children and writes all night after the kids are asleep, because that is the only free time to write. If pergatory were a location, this intersection of trying to do the impossible with your hands tied behind your back, would be the world I find myself in.

However, as chance would have it, this public health nightmare in the BVI, has resulted in the first Rant-which is about health disparities and inadequate medical care for the poor, not in the U.S., where my daughter Charlotte died of medical negligence in one of  the most prestigious hospitals in the country, and where my emergency surgery would result in permanent disability, a law suit I won after three long years, but in the "developing countries" where I have worked : Haiti, Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Nepal.

The Ebola virus has reminded me why I have a MPH in International Health and brings back haunting memories of the beginning of the AIDS Epidemic, where medical staff in white suits treated patients, afraid of contagion. I remember the one and only funeral parlor in Boston that was even willing to bury the dead. I remember human rights abuses trampled on from fear and ignorance and a social justice movement that began in the gay community. Every consumer advocacy group, particularly the Breast Cancer movement (pink ribbon etc) owes their start to the lessons in heroism and compassion that AIDS organizations built against all odds. It was the era of Act Up and civil disobedience and leaders like Gina Quatrocchi, Executive Director of Bailey House, chaining herself to the desk at City Hall under the Guliani administration. It was the era of black and pink t-shirts on beautiful young men who had nothing to lose, because we only had bactrim and AZT and life expectancy in the late 1980's and early 1990s, if you could call it life, was six months. There was no gay marraige, no power of attorney, no health care proxy, no domestic partnership benefits, no rights of inheritance, not even visiting rights for the long term partners of the beautiful gay men who were dying one a day for what felt like a decade.

That is why I chose public health work. Public health work is political,inherently political. AIDS work is political. Advocating for people who have no rights or access to treatment is political. There was outrage or there was complicity. For the colleagues I have worked with for twenty years, Allan Clear, Executive Director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, Tracie Gardner, NYS Policy Director at the, Legal Action Center and recently named NYS Secretary of Health, Gina Quattrochi, Executive Director of Bailey House, Tokes Osubu, former Executive Director of GMAD and an eternal friend, Joe Pressley, former Executive Director of the New York AIDS Coalition, Amy Herman, my former boss at the New York AIDS Coalition, Doug Wirth, Mildred Pinott Esquire, former Deputy Director of ECQ Group, Inc.,"la flaca", Janet Goldberg, Executive Director of the AIDS Center, Brooklyn Hospital, Gary Wright, Ryan Chavez, COO at the Drug Policy Alliance, my mentor, and the person who taught me everything I know about being a gay man, Scott Madden, formerly of AIDS Action Committee and the man I should have married, Dr. Michael Mullen, Chief of Infectious Disease at Mt. Sinai, Dr. Patrick Hennessey, Dermatologist, Body Positive Medical Advisory Board,Kim Nichols, Executive Director at African Services Center, Wesley Badillo NYSDOH, AIDS Institute, Peter Laquer, NYSDOH AIDS Institute, Reverend Drew Giddings, Dennis De Leon,former Executive Director of the Latino Commission on AIDS, Willis Green, former Executive Director of Harlem United, Robert Cordero, former member of the Mayors Office on AIDS,  Enrique, Tito, Vilma, and my team of twenty HIV Positive Peer Educators at Body Positive, who taught me everything I know about bravery, Val Oliver, Editor of Body Positive magazine where I served as staff writer and co-editor of El Cuerpo Positivo, Marcelo Marer, Susan Chase Esquire, former Director of Business Development at ECQ Group and Staff Attorney for Harlem Legal Services, Odell Mays, former Deputy Director of ECQ Group, Professor, CUNYDr. Nancy McKenzie, Associate Professor of Public Health, Hunter College, Les Hayden, Stu Cohen, Partner, FMA,  Dan Tietz, Executive Director of ACRIA, who as a nurse by training, taught me that there are no athiests on their deathbeads, Rosemary Lopez, Associate Executive Director, AQCQ, Sorraya Sampson, CEO, Urban League of Westchester County, Matt Bainey, and Matt LaSeur, former ECQ Board membersto all of us who have been in the fight or moved on to other fights, we the Dinosaur Parade, we remember why we came and why we stayed and who we lost and what it cost us.

So to my colleagues, to my 5 roomates, three from Rehoboth Beach, two from San Francisco, who died of AIDS, leaving me the only survivor to remember them, to my substance abuse clients who died in Lawrence Mass, Boston Mass, to my friends who live with AIDS today, surviving 20 years of infection, stigma, treatment that almost killed them or made them wish for death, for all of you, this is my first blog, and it is dedicated to you, my colleagues, my friends, who taught me more than anyone would ever want to know, including how to get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other, and do it all over again, even when you didn't have it in you: to you and to the system of care we built from nothing into a legacy of care and treatment that will be the model now for Ebola, and the next infectious disease that ravages nations and cities and erases entire generations or families, to all of you, I say, what we used to say on World AIDS Day at the AIDS Action Committee Memorial, when we would read the names of who died that year, at the very beginning, when it was possible to read all the names in one year, which would never be possible today, I say Presente!

So, here it is the unofficial first entry of the Writers Rant, a long monologue or tirade or manifesto or personal essay or call to action, one that has nothing to do with writing, but about the art of living and dying, and the onus on the survivors to make these lives be for blessing.

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Here is the link to the ongoing controversy surrounding my Facebook post regarding sub-standard conditions at Peebles Hospital, here in the BVI, www.facebook/communityboardBVI. I guess that I have achieved my 15 seconds of fame, promised to me by Andy Warhol. I am Patient X, the French Canadian steward who was the first identified HIV positive patient. I am the first public, poster-child to publish on my personal Facebook page, the state of the hospital ward conditions of Peebles Hospital. I am "that girl", the one who had her appendix taken out, with the bad luck to present on Christmas, two days before the formal closure of this public hospital institution. How  many Peebles' patients have access to Facebook? Not many. How many realized that they deserved better care? Everyone. How many of the patients lodged a complaint? Probably nobody.

Unlike my roomates on the ward, and since I lived to tell the tale, it is my responsibility to ensure that no other indigent patient receives the unsanitary, indifferent, in fact negligent nursing care that I received as a visitor to the beautiful British Virgin Islands.

 My parents believed that the only danger was surviving the emergency surgery. God bless my 75 year old father, blind in one eye, who waited 3.5 hours after my discharge, for my prescriptions. Dans le royaume des aveugles, les borns sont rois. These medications had no lable, so I had no idea what pills I was actually taking, no discharge instructions, no wound care information, no list of symptoms that would require immediate re-admittance, just a bunch of white pills in an anonymous brown  paper bag, not unlike the bags you see on corners everywhere, with men drinking MAD Dog from the bottle. .

 I, unfortunately, knew that surviving emergency surgeris was only the first hurdle. The second hurdles is to not die of sepsis, staff infection or other bacteria that comes from being on a medical ward with no soap, dirty sheets, inadequate nursing care, no HVAC system, no air-conditioning, no EKG machine, no defibrillator, no medical supplies, no electronic medical records, no screening for co-morbidities, no hazardous waste disposal, just open garbage cans with bloody needles and bandages

I am having an attack of gardia, a parasite that all of us who did public health work in Bolvia, have in our intestines. Once you have gardia, you always have it.   

The physicians, two African Caribbean mal doctors and two foreign surgeons, one from Nigeria, one from Guyana, provided emergency, obstetrics and ambulatory care for the entire hospital that holiday weekend. The patients, only three of whom were white out of a patient census of approximately 150 hospital beds and ambulatory patients that Christmas weekend, some of whom lived, and some of whom died on Sunday, the last day at the old Peebles Hospital on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. On Monday, the new facility opened and from that pristine facility, indigent and uninsured patients had a spectacular view of the private hospital "the Purple Palace" that loomed on the hill, a for -profit hospital where wealthy white patients come for plastic surgery,breast enlargements, tummy tucks, face-lifts, botox injections, or what we refer to as medical tourism. Compared to what I saw at Peebles, giardia and an unsightly, badass scar to match my 3 Cesarean scars, side effects from general anesthesia that included traumatic nightmares for two nights, insomnia for the next two, a subsequent parasitic infection, returning from my public health life when I was 26, the symptoms undeniable, even after a twenty year hiatus: that unforgettable taste of sulfur, all these side effects from  the hospital surgery ward that JCHACO ww.jointcommission.org would condemn on the spot, spreading neon yellow HAZARDOUS MATERIALS tape across the front door of the emergency room entrance, like a crime scene, shutting down Peebles on the spot- my non-life threatening side effects seemed like a very small price to pay. 

I have to hope that the future generation of professionals in the AIDS field, like Zachariah Hennessey, former Director of Research and Evaluation at my public health non-profit consulting group facebook.com/ECQGRroup, now Administrator of the Infectious Disease Clinic at Woodhull Hospital, or Kate Mishkin, former ECQ Intern Coordinator and now Malaria Program Officer for the Peace Corps in the Ivory Coast, or International Health medical volunteers who died in Liberia, trying to save the lives of Ebola patients, carry on the work my generation began. Because, while I cannot speak for any of my colleagues, the ability and stamina to continue this type of work, requires an element of outrage that I rarely see anymore. What I see instead is apathy. Where do I see this? As a College Professor, when I told my 65 Freshman College Writing students that anyone who brought me a copy of his/her voter's registration card would receive extra-credit, and only three out of sixty-five had registered, or when I asked how many of them read at least the front paper of the New York Times every day, even the online version, and not one out of sixty five, as in none, raised a hand, then, then: I worry and I rant and I write.

Charlotte Clear

Writers Rant, December 31,2014

Peters Island 

Grants for Individuals

Grants for Individuals National Endowments for the Arts