Lisa Geichman Prosek

Perhaps I need to make a public declaration so that I can come fully back into the light of a literary life. Maybe I should finally openly admit that I haven’t written properly in a year. That, after my sister passed away in 2012, my writing died a slow death. Maybe it happened because there […]

I don’t know about you, but performances by artistic gymnasts mesmerize me. I love to see them fly off the vault, soar from one uneven bar to another, and tumble with forceful assuredness in the floor exercise. What really gets me, though, is the balance beam. How does anybody stand on a four-inch piece of […]

Since late October, my family has been increasingly devastated by my sister’s cancer, which has continued to progress despite aggressive treatment. When faced with such life-and-death crises, my first impulse is to shut myself off from the world, and this means that my writing stops. Like a flower that closes when the night’s darkness approaches, […]

During the last six months, I’ve been feeling more overwhelmed and unnerved by the blank page than usual. When I have written, I’ve spent much more time thinking about how the work fails than how it succeeds. I’ve found it far easier to totally avoid writing than to do it, even though writing stands as […]

Writing is tough. Who would disagree with that? But, for me, the least of the difficulty occurs when I’m at the keyboard putting one word after another. And that process can be so difficult that my straight hair nearly curls because my brain’s pushing so hard. What’s even more difficult is getting my butt, brain, […]

Now that my book’s written, I need to move on to the next project. But what should that be? When I first started writing, I thought I’d have trouble coming up with ideas to pursue. Instead, it turns out that I suffer from TMI Syndrome–too many ideas. Probably like many of you, I see the […]

It starts first thing in the morning, even before the sun wakes. I wish I could adequately convey how it sounds. As I write, I imagine that it’s a mix between a trumpet’s blare and a baby’s coo. It’s my cat, Bud, making his special cry for milk. He cries so hard and so long […]

My mother and I disagreed about everything. Religion. Politics. Women’s roles. Parenting. Fashion. Even cornbread. We spoke on the phone barely once a month and saw each other even more infrequently. Holidays, that was about it. Somehow, we stiffened our spines and got through them. Still, on July 3, 2008, when Dad told me Mom […]

His name was Steve. He was a high school student, handsome, muscular, and tan. Dreamboat. The brother of a friend, and I’d had a crush on him for a long time. All the other ten-year-old girls were looking at him, giggling, and flirting. All I could see were my feet holding tight to the side […]