Sabotaging Voice
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. Little wonder we poets have our own writing defenses— ways of subverting or otherwise muting the voice. The most obvious of course is the […]
Voice
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. As critical as voice is to our poems, few talk about it—what it is, how we ‘find’ it, what interferes with or enhances it–this […]
A Mentor
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. A friend told me about Molly Peacock whose work I greatly admired—she took private students and was very supportive without sacrificing the rigors of […]
Envy
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. My sense of isolation intensified even further when my own envy erupted. Over the years in therapy, I confronted the enormous storm that […]
A Thank You…
Reading and discussing my work with audiences is such a pleasure. It completes the process that began in most cases years ago with inspiration and writing followed by relentless editing and finally, joyful sharing with readers. One never gets tired of meeting new readers. But so much of reading in bookstores and libraries is a […]
The Beginnings of Speech
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. But after the relief of making a commitment to learn to write, that would not be easy. Because I was still so convinced […]
Sequels to Confessions
Though many readers have asked for a sequel to Confessions—they want to know what happens to Joan and her family—and I love that interest and idea, it’s a tough task. I actually wrote a second book several years ago which I consider a failure– for several reasons; the first is that I could not hear […]
A reading of “Confessions”
Here is the latest video from CavanKerry Press, a reading from “Confessions” at the book release party at Le Possoin Rouge. Enjoy.
Reading Between the Lines on “Confessions”
Cusack Handler’s prose reverberates with evocative imagery, insight and emotion, conjuring not only the physicality, mystery and allure of the Roman Catholic faith of the 1950s, but also the authentic intensity and vacillation of adolescent feelings. The story, constructed in slice-of-life fragments and steeped in the present tense, deepens the intimacy of this well-drawn, psychologically […]
“Confessions” on Peeking Between the Pages
Read it here