RSS Feed Delivery by Email

by Alison Bergblom Johnson on January 22, 2012

Hi, y’all. This is just to say that I’m going to make some tweeks to the way I send out email subscriptions. You don’t have to do anything if you are signed up to receive my posts in your inbox, and you wish to continue to get said posts. Also, if you read the blog on the web or in a feed reader you don’t need to make any changes.

For a long time I’ve used Feedburner to send email subscriptions to the blog. I also maintain an email list.

I’ve been wanting to simplify and streamline my website. One obvious target is to only have one email signup list. I think it’s confusing to sign up to the blog and to email newsletter.

This post should go out via both Feedburner only, and is just a heads up that this change will be taking place.

Thanks so much.

Is depression indescribable?

by Alison Bergblom Johnson on November 11, 2011

William Styron writing on how depression is often described as “indescribable.”

“That the word ‘indescribable’ should present itself is not fortuitous, since it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience.” – William Styron

What do you think?

On Joyce Carol Oates

November 8, 2011

So, until recently the only Joyce Carol Oates’ novel I’d read has been Blonde. I’ve now also read Black Water, and begun Black Girl/White Girl. As with comments on Joan Didion’s work I’m rather stunned by some of the comments about Oates’ work on review sites such as GoodReads. I won’t quote reviews that clearly [...]

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Quote: Mairs on Writing

November 4, 2011

“None of the writing is easy, but I no longer refuse to do it for fear that I’ll fail to get it right. It can never be right, I know it can only be done.” – Nancy Mairs I love this quote and am busy doing the work of making words not right, but done.

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Some Reading Lists: Contemporary Women Writers

November 1, 2011

One of the most important books of the last few years is Elaine Showalter’s A Jury of Her Peers, which is a critical assessment of American women writers from the earliest colonial days to the present. I’ve been a rather obsessive reader of books about women writers over the years. A Jury of Her Peers [...]

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Quote: Grob on Foucault

October 28, 2011

“Foucault’s writings tended to demythologize psychiatry because of his insistence that the specialty’s appeal was to be found not in its contribution to an understanding of human behavior, but in its relationships to the sources of power and domination.” – Gerald Grob Lots to think about here. More to come.

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On the Radio Silence

October 26, 2011

I promise that while I haven’t been posting on this blog I have been writing up a storm. I’ve committed to completing my memoir, Alison Failure, about mental illness and my family this year. While I’m not certain it will be absolutely complete, I would like it to be ready to send to agents and [...]

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Confidence

September 3, 2011

“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.” — Rosalynn Carter

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Relentlessly True

August 31, 2011

During an audition I was once asked what made me different from other storytellers. I managed to have the perfect answer come into my mind at that crucial moment. I said: “I tell relentlessly true stories.” For me it’s about more than simply telling the truth as I’ve experienced it, but being relentless in my [...]

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If I Knew…

August 26, 2011

“If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already… the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.” – Cindy Sherman

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