Alegrías y lágrimas (Happiness and Tears)

"There is so much richness in every human being, just begging to come out."

Hola! While on vacation (though a writer is never on vacation, thoughts are always popping up at random moments) I heard from the Raven Theater that they are willing to donate space for a performance of Alegías y lágrimas next October/November. God bless them! We hope that this is the first of many donated sites under the auspices of the Illinois Humanities Council, where we asked for a year-long grant starting in October.

If all goes well, we will have ten performances around the city, followed by an expert speaker and then, small group work on cultural issues and storytelling. There is so much richness in every human being, just begging to come out. I guess that’s why I like that saying, “Cada cabeza es un mundo” (Every mind is a world unto itself.) So cross your fingers and toes that we get the grant for our “Immigrant Storytelling Project.” In either case we will have the show at the Raven—date to be announced,

I myself have been working on telling my own immigrant story in a play and novel entitled “The Rabbi’s Daughter and the Runaway Irishman.” You see, I am the granddaughter of a runaway Catholic priest and the great grand daughter of a Rabbi from Bialystok (Poland).  Now there’s something to wrap your brain around! I already wrote a play and it has had two staged readings. But lately my feeling is that the novel form is a better vehicle for such a big, multigenerational story: My Irish Catholic great-grandparents came from Ballybay, Ireland, while my Jewish great-grandparents came from Bialystok and settled in New Orleans. There my grandparents—the rabbi’s daughter and the runaway Irishman, met and married.

Covering four generations with a multitude of characters in a play is not easy, unless you have a huge budget. In the novel I feel I can luxuriate and spread my wings in the storytelling. I have five chapters already, reviewed and praised by my fiction writing group. So, onwards and upwards.

The other night I dreamt of our family dining at a table parallel to our Jewish neighbors’. We had lovely icons from my story—like a miniature version of the boat my Jewish great-grandparents came over on. So my husband picked it up and showed it to our Jewish neighbors. They were fascinated by it and I fell in love with my story all over again.

So I have my plate full for 2011-2012: staging and culling new stories for the play “Alegrías y lágrimas”; and finishing “The Rabbi’s Daughter and the Runaway Irishman.”

In the next newsletter I’ll tell you about my newest science fiction novel, co-authored with a physics professor and entitled “Into the Black Hole.”

Do I have fun or what???