I can be contacted by sending me an email directly to elizabethorrwritenow@gmail.com or calling me at 408 455-2893.
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ORGANIZATIONS: The Dramatist Guild, Women in Film, Tricycle, Kannon Do Zen Center, and the Union for Concerned Scientists.
Blog
The most important juncture this year has been an awakening I experienced with ninety-three-year old Sōtō Zen Abbot Les Kaye of Kannon Do Zen Center. Sitting side by side writing a web video, I discovered my voice anew. Feeling Les’s energy, shifted my consciousness. Consequently, I went back to BANJO, The Heart Milagro, and spent 2023 editing and rewriting it with revelations that never stopped. We should all be so lucky to sit with a Zen abbot.
Another big change, I have a new Zen teacher, Kyōshō Valorie Beer, who advises me to spread my wings and fly. This has led me to a wonderful dharma flow where I found myself working again with Zen priest and author/actor/narrator Peter Coyote.
April 23, 2024
In between this spectacular year of writing, I read Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way; an extraordinary journey in consciousness when the science was barely known. Henry David Thoreau’s The Journal, 1837-1861, another exercise in clear consciousness. Truman Capote’s Portraits and Observations and Other Voices and Other Rooms. His command of creative words is astonishing. However, I can’t help but comment that as his fame grew, his writing skill declined. All due to a deteriorating consciousness. Capote led me to Willa Cather’s Collected Stories. At first I thought, frou frou, but now I see a sublime beauty to her observations. I am just beginning The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner. For fun, I’m reading Konrad Lorenz, a Viennase born psychiatrist who obtained a doctorate in Comparative Anatomy and Animal Psychology. His book, Man Meets Dog, written in 1953, is loaded with keen observations. Recommend all veternarians read this! And to keep up with the Astro club, I am dipping into Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time.
I’ve been fascinated by writers who had the time to write tremendous volumes of pages; time to really observe what was around them including the human mind.
April 22, 2024.
Just received a lovely idea about writing the first page of a book. This from Abbot Les Kaye: A quote from Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness (pg 89) “The first words of a book are so important. The moment of encounter. When the reader turns to that first page and reads those opening words, it’s like locking eyes or touching someone’s hand for the first time…when a book and a reader are meant for each other both of them know it…”
April 15, 2024
I have completed five children’s picture books. Howie Doodle! Children’s author, Douglas Rees, assures me it is good. Thinking about sending it to the Yankees since it’s about a mini golden doodle who dreams of playing with them. The other books are part of a Dog Nanny series based on my rowdy experiences. I think Disney is channeling me.
May 11, 2023
Am nearly finished reading Leo Tolstoy’s Collected Shorter Fiction Volume 2. I remain mesmerized by his reference to consciousness in so many of his tales. No surprise Mahatma Gandhi found Tolstoy to be a revolutionary spiritual thinker. Gandhi discovered Tolstoy’s book —The Kingdom of God is Within You (published in 1894)— sitting in a coffee house in London and experienced a great awakening. He quit his law work and moved to South Africa to help the downtrodden. Here is a quote from Tolstoy’s book:
“People often think the question of non-resistance to evil by force is a theoretical one, which can be neglected. Yet this question is presented by life itself to all men, and calls for some answer from every thinking man.”
Coincidentally, Sigmund Freud published his first book in 1891 titled: On Aphasia, dealing with consciousness and the ability to formulate language.
March 2, 2023
Have just re-read To Kill A Mockingbird again. The wonder is in the verisimilitude of the time, place, and characters. Harper Lee captured it because she lived it. Her voice is the book. No wonder Truman Capote (Dill in the novel) was so jealous. It seems Harper’s eyes and ears and heart were wide open. The story emerged from a gentle recollection without pretense or a feverish desire to write a great book.
January 4, 2023
Banjo the Zen Dog, From One Heart to Another is still at New World Library. To this I echo poet Billy Collins:
ENVOY
Go, little book, out of this house and into the world, carriage made of paper rolling toward town bearing the reach of this jittery pen and far from the desk and the nosy gooseneck lamp.
It is time to decamp, put on a jacket and venture outside, time to be regarded by other eyes, bound to be held in foreign hands.
So off you go, infants of the brain, with a wave and some bits of fatherly advice:
stay out as late as you like, don’t bother to call or write, and talk to as many strangers as you can.
December 12, 2022
Just finished reading Leo Tolstoy’s Collected Shorter Fiction Volume 1. I am struck by his profound psychological insights. Am convinced Sigmund Freud must have read his works because the undercurrent of the subconscious mind runs throughout Tolstoy’s characters. Recommend reading these short stories: Family Happiness, a wondrous examination of romance, love, and especially how one marriage endures immaturity; What Men Live By, about an angel who must redeem himself on earth and is found naked leaning against a church wall. Everyone views him as a vagrant until one man turns back to help him; Albert, about a pauper, a wondrously gifted violinist, who an upper-crust gentleman tries to help; and Strider: The Story of a Horse, about the life of an elegant old piebald gelding and how he tolerates the world around him, especially humans. December 11, 2022
Words gleaned from a talk by Abbott Les Kaye at Kannon Do Zen Center in Mountain View: “Understanding is in the gut not in the head.” A month or so ago, Les had also given a talk mentioning Zen Buddhism is not a religion but a practice. I knew what he meant: that Zen is lived and practiced wherever we are. Zen is also a religion, but it is much more than ritual and ceremony. December 11, 2022
From “Musical Tables” by poet Billy Collins:
3 A. M. Only my hand is asleep, but it’s a start.
FLAUBERT As he looked for the right words, several wrong words appeared in his window.
November 26, 2022
Was reminded today of a Buddhist koan: A monk asked Zen master Yunmen what is the fundamental teaching the Buddha conveyed over his lifetime. Answer: “An appropriate response.” In Soto Zen, this is called skillful means. It involves patience, silence, understanding, listening, and taking your time to say carefully chosen words. In other words: watch what you say. November 21, 2022
For Zen and literary students, I highly recommend the monthly newsletter, The Dewdrop. It is wonder presenting awakened writers such as poets Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, and Nadir Feroz . Created by Soto Zen priest Vanessa Able, it is an education in Zen presence through words. Highly recommend subscribing to —the dewdrop.org November 21, 2022
Just reading Tolstoy’s Two Hussars short story. It’s a marvel of metaphors! Example: …Looking at her it really seemed that this was not a woman but a flower, and not a rose, but some gorgeous scentless rosy-white wildflower that had grown all alone out of a snowdrift in some very remote land. November 20, 2022
Wonderful when you find an author who can make you laugh like Bill Bryson in his A Walk in the Woods. It seems Bryson can write anything including A Short History of Nearly Everything. His travel books like Notes from a Small Island (about Britain), magically catapult you there. If you are looking for non-fiction escapism, look no further! November 18, 2022
Highly recommend reading George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a literary master class on what makes Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol great short story writers. Tolstoy’s Master and Man is riveting. His visualizations are highly dramatic and cinematic. All of these authors’ iconic stories are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it is more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. By how fiction works, I think Saunders means how characters present their inner dialogue; what they are thinking without saying it out loud. It is their psychological back story which tells the motives of the story. Nov. 14, 2022.
Highly recommend reading George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a literary master class on what makes Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol great short story writers. Tolstoy’s Master and Man is riveting. His visualizations are highly dramatic and cinematic. All of these authors’ iconic stories are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it is more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. By how fiction works, I think Saunders means how characters present their inner dialogue; what they are thinking without saying it out loud. It is their psychological back story which tells the motives of the story. Nov. 14, 2022.