Carol Bergman

A student has dropped out of my class. She says she has scheduling problems but I don’t think this is the real reason. Class #5 and #6 are the most difficult: my students hit a wall. The wall is different for every writer and every student writer. We begin in a state of bliss, keeping our journals, beginning a piece of work, enjoying ourselves. A melody of language pours out of us onto the page, we are released, we are free, we are transported. But as all this happens, students are also becoming better at critiquing—and I am getting tougher. There is potential in the work and my mandate is to suggest ways to lift the manuscript out of discovery draft into a final draft—or project—strong enough for submission.

So the weeks pass and the critique becomes deeper and more telling. Where are the holes in the story? Why isn’t this sentence or paragraph working? In order to sustain self-esteem in this open, demonstrative environment, a writer needs courage, flexibility and patience in equal measure. Some students aren’t ready for this, or they get rattled, or refuse to listen and become defensive. We study what is on the page and how to make it better. That is all.

I make phone calls, have more discussions, write personal emails of encouragement. I do my best. Years of experience in the workshop setting have taught me a great deal about becoming a writer in the most existential sense. I watch with pleasure as my students begin to think of themselves as writers. And though I am deeply sorry when someone drops away, I don’t take it personally, and hope they will not abandon their writing lives.

A critique is not criticism. By creating a warm and considerate environment with firm rules, I can only do so much. The rest is up to the student: s/he has to meet the workshop, and the workshop process, half-way.  Read More 

A woman approached me on the pool deck. “Hi, Carol. It’s good to see you. We missed you in class today.”

She was an instructor I have seen working in the warm, small pool for babies and “the elderly” many times. Her particular class is for women of a certain age who have stiff joints. She plays loud, funky music and was toting her boom box. Class was over and I’d missed it!

I may be a woman of a certain age, but I am a lap swimmer who once upon a time was a competitive swimmer. And my joints may be stiff, but I pay no attention. I don’t take classes and I had never talked to this instructor before.

So her approach to me was weird. “I don’t take any classes,” I told her.

That startled her. “Oh my, and your name is Carol? You have a Doppelgänger. Another Carol, similar build.”

I didn’t like this story, it made me uncomfortable. Not only did this Doppelgänger look like me, she had the same name.

I don’t want a “twin” who is unrelated. But I was also intrigued, albeit eerily so. In mythology—German, Norse, Egyptian—a Doppelgänger is an evil twin and harbinger of bad luck or death. No thank you.

I stuck with my intuition and didn’t take my inquiry further. I got into the pool and had a good swim. But it got me to thinking about—of all things—where we are in the universe and how all stories, in the end, are universal stories. Not just one of me? How could that be? Unique and individual and solipsistic as we are, we are not alone in this fucked-up world of ours. Read More 

And it’s a good one, “Bridge of Spies.” I won’t reiterate the plot here as I am sure, dear reader, you will see it soon enough or have already read the euphoric reviews. Steven Spielberg rarely disappoints, he has the clout to hire the best actors, the best screenwriters (the Coen brothers share the credit with Matt Charman), the best of everything. Tom Hanks, in one of the most resonant performances of his career, has the stature of Bogart. Mark Rylance is Mark Rylance. And as my husband said as we walked out: “This is an old-fashioned Hollywood movie. Spielberg’s a great cinematic story-teller.”

We had been to a screening at the Director’s Guild with directors, screenwriters and actors. No food, no drinks allowed, no advertisements before the movie begins, no cell phones on, please. There is security to make sure no one is filming the film and—a final rule—stay in your seat until the last credit rolls.

In other words, the all-professional audience is paying attention—to the script, to the acting, to the cinematography, everything. We are not just there to be entertained, but to study how a film is made and whether or not it has been made well. There is usually some applause at the end, or not. Spielberg: applause. Discussion afterward on the long line to the restroom—it was a long film: So, what did you think? And off we go.

I was a lone dissenter because I do feel—dare I say it—that Spielberg sometimes indulges a sentimental weakness. And maybe if I had a net worth of 3.6 billion dollars, I would do the same. And he doesn’t always do it—certainly not in “Schindler’s List.”

I remembered my disappointment when I went to see “The Color Purple.” It was made in 1985 and starred Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover, two good actors. Adapted from Alice Walker’s masterpiece, the adaption was mostly okay until the very end. Spielberg changed the ending into a kind of happier ending with a parade of dancing and singing people rolling down the street. I was mortified.

It’s been a while, and I may not be remembering this particular movie correctly, but I have experienced other mortified moments like this watching a Spielberg film, and I had at least one last night.

(No spoilers, don’t worry.)

Consider this scene: a GDR attorney general, obviously a former Nazi, takes a phone call during his conversation with lawyer/negotiator Donovan (Hanks), and before we know it, we are witnessing a Peter Sellers caricature of a Nazi. It mars the scene—a dead serious scene—because it made me laugh. It was indulgent, over the top, and this is not the actor’s responsibility, it’s the director’s. We know that Spielberg cares a lot about Jewish Holocaust history (The Shoah Project) so what was he trying to say here? And what was in the original script before it became a shooting script? I’m curious.

I know that when an artist becomes rich and famous, those close to him—editors , for example, in the case of a writer—don’t have the courage to speak up. I wish that a colleague of Spielberg would tell him about this creative tic so that he could eliminate it from his cinematic vocabulary. I am always grateful when someone tells me about my tics. We all have them.  Read More 

I launched "Nomads 2," my new collection of mini-stories, at the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village last night. It’s a well known performance space and I was pleased to get a slot in their schedule so close to my appearance there for the first "Nomads" last January. On both occasions, I collaborated with actors, I didn’t read my own work, and I have been learning a lot. Friends, family, students, and some strangers were present. People laughed, they applauded, all in the most unexpected places for me, the writer. What’s real and what isn’t? This odd question kept occurring to me all night. The prose on the page is real, I know what everything means, or what I meant to say. But an audience, especially if actors are re-interpreting my words, experience what I wrote differently. And this sets me to thinking about ways to improve, to get the story straight, and to make the best use of words. These mini-stories are disciplined distillations. I love writing them.

And then, this morning, my husband—who doesn’t read my work until it is published—asked me if one particular story was based on a real incident. He recognized a snippet of dialogue and he wanted to know if it really happened. I was uncomfortable and became defensive. Had I appropriated something from his life that he wanted to write about? No, that wasn’t it. So what was it? “Is this fact or fiction?” he asked. “Is the line clear?”

He’s an historian and journalist by training and most of his imaginative writing—in the form of screenplays—is fact-based. I had thought he understood that these stories were clearly fiction, but he does not write fiction, so he doesn’t understand: a fiction writer has the prerogative to use the raw material of her life to create a work. It’s a process of transformation which may or may not involve research as well as imagination. But nothing is only imaginative or only fact-based; it comes from somewhere, it is transformed into art. And if a snippet of dialogue, for example, sounds familiar to those near and dear, we do not have to explain, unless we want to. I don’t.  Read More 

I confess I am smitten with Holder, a detective in “The Killing.” The actor, Joel Kinnaman, is Swedish but he sounds African-American. His performance is intriguing. I'm hooked and have just started Season 3. Oh it is dark, monstrous indeed. And I’ve finished the most recent Netflix additions of “Longmire,” all of “Foyle’s War,” all the back episodes of “Blue Bloods,” “Paradise,”(PBS), and on we go. I recommend series to friends and family and they recommend series to me. It’s a bonanza, a renaissance. And it seems that with all the bad news every day, we need this escape. Everyone I know is doing it.

My husband has different tastes and other favorites. There are nights, usually late at night—our binging time—too tired to read or do anything else that needs doing—that we sit side by side on the couch, one of us on an ipad with a headset, the other with a headset for the TV. (We alternate.) Headsets—an electronic miracle—have saved and/or amplified our marriage. The next day we might say, “So how is your program going?” It’s a life-affirming diversion from the latest news about ISIL, IFIL or school shootings. Another this week. How many have there been since Obama took office? In a strong, well-written speech (he has good writers and is a good writer), I think he said: 18. No wonder we binge.

But how does a working writer justify this binging? And is it interfering with the writing life? I am not sure. For certain, I must curtail my viewing and read more if I want to make progress on a writing project. But I also know that it is relaxing, compelling even to watch these shows, mostly well scripted with high production values. And I admire a good script, strong plots and deep characterization with interesting backstory. When I am writing fiction, plotting is not my strength, so I am paying attention. My husband is a screenwriter and he is able to parse the script in a way I can’t. We’re working on a screen treatment together at the moment (we’ve done two together so far) and the learning curve is still steep for me—visualizing scenes and so on. I do believe—another justification, perhaps—that binging has helped my visualization muscle.

So there’s that. I’m absorbing, studying and relaxing all at the same time. And I still binge on authors, reading their entire oeuvre, something I have done for years. It’s a wonderful way to get into the author’s head: What are her obsessions? Her narrative choices? How has her work changed as she has matured? How happy I was to discover that I could download all of Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Trollope, Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather, Dickens, and so much more, all for free! I read a lot, sometimes two or three books at the same time—fiction and nonfiction. And I have finally installed the Overdrive app on my iPad so I can borrow e-books from the library. They don’t have everything I want to read—and I am impatient—but I can put books on hold and also recommend books. They have to be read within three weeks, so no binging if a book from the library has to get read. I stop cold turkey. This reassures me that I am not addicted.

Once upon a time there was a website called “Readerville,” avid readers and writers chatting about the books they were reading. One of the threads was devoted to comments about authors and their oeuvre, all of the oeuvre. We all binged on favorite writers, many in the chat room were writers, and it was easy to imagine—though it took some hubris—that one day someone would binge on our oeuvre. I miss that site , which shut down too soon, though I learned recently that there is a thread of former Readerville “members” on Goodreads. I’ll have to check it out.
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The gifts they give me are numerous—mostly their presence—physical and spiritual—their hard work, their commitment to the workshop and, after the workshop, to their projects. And so this blog title today is a "double entendre" : the gifts my students have, the gifts they develop, the gifts they give to me. They may be material, such as the needlepoint of butterflies my private student, Valerie Pepe, gave me last week. “Butterflies are free,” she said to me as we sat in the Hollywood Diner on 16th and Sixth Avenue and discussed some new pages for her memoir.

She had had the needlepoint framed and I had asked her to sign the back. I was so touched I could hardly speak, so I took a break as she wrote to go to the restroom to give her some privacy. What would she write? Something simple, something kind. As expected.

We have been working together for a while now and it has not always been easy. Valerie has a demanding full-time job, a new boyfriend who lives a plane-ride away, and she is on crutches. As I have written here before, none of this stops her from anything she wants to do. And so her gift to me is her fortitude, her perseverance, her enjoyment of writing every day in her journal, the stories she tells about her life and her writing life. She pays me yet I am utterly indebted to her. She’s one of the many butterflies I have collected and cherished over the years. This blog and this blog post, in particular, is dedicated to all my students—past, present and future. Thank you.  Read More 

My husband and I watched Serena lose to Roberta Vinci. Or, we watched Roberta Vinci defeat Serena. Why not say it that way? And why haven’t I used Serena’s last name? Because she is Serena, an icon. Did any of the commentators notice that on at least two occasions she looked as though she was berating herself and crying? How can an icon cry?

Because she is human and, by definition, she is not perfect. Because she makes mistakes. Is she allowed to make mistakes, allowed to be imperfect? Does her coach—who happens to be her boyfriend—allow her to make mistakes, to have doubts, to have bad days, to be imperfect? What about her sponsor? Tennis players are walking, breathing, emotional advertisements for various sports products. Their personal narratives are distorted to suit the product. They become mannequins, they become factoids. Sometimes—as in magazines—we are so focused on the make-believe story that we do not even realize we are watching a commercial.

I was thinking about Serena after the match and wanted to put my wise maternal arms around her. I hoped she had a good shower, a good meal and some fun in the remaining hours of the tournament. I hoped she had her nails redone. I hoped she could forgive herself for not achieving the Grand Slam, for buckling under the hype and expectation. Not only a woman but an African-American woman—the best of the best!! All that history of segregation and discrimination in what was once a “gentleman’s game”—embodied in that incredible honed female body.

Oh I was thinking about Serena a lot. I hoped she would be smiling in the morning. I hoped she could rest.

There are analogies to professional writing, to all achievement in our goal-driven society, in fact. The pressures of making a living, the editors we have inside us that inhibit our writing, the unrealistic goals we set for ourselves, can all lead to stumbles and unnecessary disappointment.

There is no way to know what was in Serena’s mind and heart the day she lost the Grand Slam unless she tells us or writes about it. Maybe—someday—she will.  Read More 

Suumer’s end and the last few hours on this beautiful screened-in porch. It’s been a pleasant working vacation: feeding chickens, looking after rabbits, looking after Willow (luxuriating on the wicker settee), and Ninja, the mouse-catching cat on our daughter and son-in-law’s homestead while they have had their vacation overseas visiting our British family.

It’s been dry; we’ve had to water. Two laying chickens died: one drowned, the other was just old. Baby rabbits were born just as we arrived. (My husband has taken care of them as I am pescatarian and they are slaughtered for meat. Big discussions!) The compost has to go out every morning. It’s an active, healthy, physical life, the perfect occasional antidote for the sedentary writing life. Lots of walks of course, a couple of lap swims for me, but no need to get to the gym. I finished a book—“Nomads 2”—and my husband finished a documentary script outline. Productive in the midst of a vacation.

And we’ve entertained city friends. They ooh and aah, ask questions, but wonder at the remoteness of the house and ask, “Could we ever live here full-time?” The answer is yes and no. Yes, because in our virtual world, connection is easy. Our daughter, a graphic designer, works for two big companies and several small ones from her homestead home and travels for appointments—in the city and elsewhere—now and again. Our son-in-law’s business is here: designing sustainable gardens and running a maple syrup business.

No, because some writers do not do well without a lot of stimulation. I am one of them. Typically I write in the midst of whatever is going on in my life. I write inside my life and about my life. I read several books at once. I like talking to people, hearing their stories. And in this remote, mountainous place, I may or may not meet someone on the road as I take my morning walk with Willow. Usually not. So, it’s okay for two weeks to refuel and relax, but not as a place to live full-time.

Sure, my husband, Jim, is company, and we talk a lot, work in tandem and talk about our work, but it’s not the same as a subway ride or a class full of interesting, energetic, motivated students. One of many reasons I love teaching. The NYU term begins on the 30th of this month. I can’t wait.  Read More 

It’s time for a vacation. Everyone is on vacation, even the President. He has a Spotify play list as well as a summer reading list that includes:"All That Is"by James Salter,"All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr,"The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Lowland" by Jhumpa Lahiri and "Washington: A Life" by Ronald Chernow.

An impressive fiction/non-fiction list. I’ve read the Chernow (I love colonial history), tried the Doerr (a no-go, for now anyway), am eager to read the Salter and Lahiri, and read some of the Kolbert in The New Yorker.

This list is not exactly “beach reading,” as one commentator said. Meaning what? Genre fiction? How-to nonfiction? No. Even on vacation the President seems to prefer enrichment rather than escape.

I can relate.

I have written here about reading genre fiction—Lee Child, in particular—which I admire and even have tried to write (my murder mystery/thriller, “Say Nothing”) but I can’t read a lot of it. I get bored. I hope “Say Nothing” is not boring. I wasn’t bored writing it; it was a challenge. I have been told that it is written well. Thank you.

I encourage my students to stretech themselves and this means reading beyond what they normally read, or reading for work, or reading for escape. All electronic devices off, except the e-reader of course. And try to slow down. That takes effort and concentration.

I’m going on vacation, too, a working vacation. I’ll be writing, reading and looking after my daughter and son-in-law’s homestead while they are away. There will be morning chores—collect eggs, let the chickens and ducks out of the coop, feed the rabbits, the dog and the cats—and long, slow days. My husband will be working on a new screenplay and I am returning to a memoir I began some years ago. And reading. I’m pleased to have discovered Overdrive and now get most e-books out of the library. Here’s my current list: “Romantic Outlaws; The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley” by Charlotte Gordon, “Tropical Fish; Tales from Entebbe,” by Doreen Baingana (a Ugandan writer), “The Bullfighter Checks her Make-up,” by Susan Orlean (a collection of her narrative nonfiction), and last but not least, “The Cloudspotter’s Guide; The Science, History and Culture of Clouds.” I have been studying clouds and want to try a painting for a collage on my front door.

All of this in two weeks. But there’s no hurry. I'm on vacation.  Read More 

A scholar, Gerhard Krebs, found my book, “Searching for Fritzi,” in Berlin. I am not sure if he found it online or in the library, or both. Even without the addendum, published many years after the original print version, he was interested in the story of my mother’s cousin, Fritzi Burger, an Olympic ice skating champion, particularly her 1935 marriage to a Japanese man, Nishikawa Shinkichi, grandson of Mikimoto Kokichi, the pearl magnate. Fritzi survived the war years in Japan while the Jewish members of her family were massacred in Europe. She entertained the visiting German and Austrian officers and ice danced for their pleasure. Was she a collaborator?

I tried to answer that question after I was contacted by Michael Ramsey, a soldier in General MacArthur’s occupation army. He had met Fritzi Burger in 1947 in Tokyo and had a story to tell.

I wrote up my new findings in an addendum to the book which was published separately as an article in an Austrian magazine and then added it to the e-book version of “Searching for Fritzi.”

I have written here before that this book has legs; it’s traveled.

I have had an email correspondence with Professor Krebs over the years and now his essay has appeared in a book called “Race and Racism in Modern East Asia.” He sent me a print-out which was—in its way—thrilling as I had never seen the wedding announcement photo of Fritzi and Nishikawa. And though I don’t agree entirely with his hypothesis about Fritzi Burger during the war years, I was very pleased that her story—and, by extension, the story of my family—continues to resonate with historians and has become part of the historical record. For this reason, and many others, it is important that journalists and historians remain responsive to one another’s queries. This personal contact and exchange of information and ideas far exceeds what we can discover on the internet. Not everything is scanned—this photo was never scanned, for example—and the interpretation by historians of what we find is also essential, as well as its dissemination.
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