Who Says Sportswriting Has to be Dull and Leaden?

Not much time to write today, but I nevertheless feel the urge to pass along a few choice tidbits that have recently caught my attention. Like this brief passage about Lebron James. It was written by Tacoma News Tribune columnist John McGrath, on the occasion of the Cavs' west coast swing last week. I think it comes the closest I've seen to describing the true nature of Lebron's court brilliance, to say nothing of being vividly and wonderfully written:

A teenager until three weeks ago, the NBA's defending Rookie of the Year is as talented as advertised. But there's a dimension to his game, his intuitive court sense, that can't fully be appreciated on those seemingly nightly sports-highlight clips of King James on TV. Like a pool shark running a table, he knows when to blast it, when to tap it. His passes can be feathery soft, when the situation calls for feathery soft, or they can be lightning-bolt quick, when the situation demands lightning-bolt quick. He's got the moves of a circus acrobat, but no wasted motion. Everything he does is consistent with the context of the game.

That's writing worth paying for, and certainly worth reading. On the other hand, there's the more traditional sports journalist, the multimedia performer. This piece in Slate describes one such multi-tasking writer, who, it seems, files his print column while on the run between TV appearances, using a Blackberry no less! Now that, I'd pay to see. Imagine typing hundreds of words on those tiny little buttons. Who said writing is a lost art? At least that way, it requires fine motor skills...
Lots to do on February 12th. Just as I'm about to book a flight for North Carolina to attend Anton Zuiker's Triangle Blogger's Conference, which centers on using blogs to build community (a subject just inches from my heart), I get word that a couple of pretty interesting events will be taking place in Cleveland that same day. No matter--nothing could keep me away from seeing my boy Z in action, in his element. And the expected turnout (80 at last word, and still growing) has to be especially gratifying, even humbling, to the ever-modest Anton. But please, dear readers. If you're a fan of this site, why not consider patronizing either or possibly both of these events that Saturday (that is, of course, if you can't join us down in N.C. You hear me Jack R??). My new friend Larry Trupo (who's a maintenance whiz in my office building) has a double life as a musician with his wonderfully named band, Poultry in Motion. They're due to play the Barking Spider at 8:30 that night. Meanwhile, my favorite local indy bookseller, the sainted Suzanne Degaetano of Mac's Backs in Coventry, has come up with a truly wonderful idea for honoring the late Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County, Daniel Thompson. I'll let her announcement do the talking:

Join us on Saturday, Feb. 12th at 7:30 p.m., at the Algebra Tea House in Cleveland's Little Italy for an evening of poetry, polemics and performance to benefit "The Daniel Thompson Poet Stone Fund." This absolutely free event is being held to raise donations for a tombstone in Lakeview Cemetary for Cuyahoga Count's late, great poet laureate, who passed away in May '04. The evening features scheduled readers and performers as well as an open mic session. Donations may also be sent c/o Mac's Back, 1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Hts., OH 44120, ascribed to "The Daniel Thompson Poet Stone Fund." The Algebra Tea House is located at 2136 Murray Hill Rd. in Little Italy. To participate, or for more information, contact Mark Hopkins at 216-231-7894 or email at safhop216@aol.com.

All in all, a brilliant idea to honor a special guy in Cleveland's recent past. I'll be sending along a modest check toward that, and I hope you might consider doing so as well. But here's another way to help that wouldn't cost a dime: show up in person that night to provide some moral support and to be a stand-in for me and Working With Words, which will be there in spirit if not body. And do follow up and let us know how it went, and we'll post that news then.

Every Long-Suffering Wife's Secret Dream:
Flushing No-Good Husband Down the Toilet

Only this German woman appears to have literally done just that. We have just two words of reaction: good Lord.

Okay, on to some cheerier news. Glad to see our friend Suzanne D's Mac's Backs bookstore get some national publicity with a mention in this New York Times holiday roundup about how local stores support local authors. In this and a thousand other ways, Suzanne has been the backbone of the local writing community for as long as I can remember. In early December, she presided over a celebration marking the opening of the new downtown loft offices of the former Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland, which has just been renamed The Lit (a name change that the organization's own website is yet to reflect, but you know how that goes). Naturally, Suzanne was board chairman and guiding light on that, as well. For earlier mentions of Suzanne and her shop go here. For past items on the PWLGC go here.

Brain Tune-Up. Are you like me, in that you're sometimes haunted, other times challenged, by statistics about how little of our brain capacity most humans actually use? Reports tend to vary from 5% on up, but whatever the correct number might be, I'm forever thinking about how to do more with whatever gray matter I've been given. And if you're hitting the middle years (or older), you may also be thinking about just keeping what you've got as sharp as it's been. Anyway, wherever you're at on that continuum, you may find some food for thought on this interesting site. I found lots of gems buried here, and I hope you will too.

We Began With the Battle of the Sexes, & That's How We'll End. With this interesting Washington Post take on the different gender wiring behind the sexes' very different mental orientation when it comes to directions. A clash as ancient as the scriptures, but one that even Mapquest will never solve.

Support the Independents (Still)

I have a couple of books on order at Mac's Backs in Coventry that I'm looking forward to picking up soon and reading. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I hope you'll consider supporting independent bookstores, because they play an invaluable role in the intellectual life of any community (three years ago, I wrote this about bookstores I've loved). They've been battered in recent years, of course, first by the invasion of the huge national chains, and then by the advent of online powerhouse Amazon. And yet the good ones keep right on going, somehow. I was happy to learn from Publisher's Weekly that bookstores remain surprisingly strong, probably because there's no experience quite like browsing a good bookstore, or even, truth be told, a mediocre one. According to the booksellers' bible, 68% of Americans who purchased a book in the last year did so at a bookstore.

The Fall Season Begins

As I noted last year at this time, when you have kids, the whole family naturally tends to follow the rhythms of the school year. And so when they head back to school, fall begins, no matter what the calendar or mercury reading says. My boys started school at St. Ignatius today. For the first time, they drove themselves to school. My oldest begins his senior year, surely a rite of passage.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Chicago to begin what should be an intellectually stimulating fall tour of writing-related events. Along with a handful of Cleveland colleagues, I'll be attending the SPJ national conference, and speaking Friday on a panel about marketing yourself as a freelancer. I'm looking forward to visiting my old haunts in leafy Lincoln Park (where I once lived as a newlywed, a very long time ago, and a place that remains in mind always) and other favorite Windy City spots. On September 16th, I'll also be speaking (about publishing on the web) back in Cleveland at Lakeland Community College's 23rd annual writers conference. A few days later, on the 20th, I'll begin a three-session class on column-writing, at the Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland. And finally, on October 12th, I'm looking forward to being on a panel at the International Association of Business Communicators (check out their blog) with the sublime Cleveland-based novelist Sarah Willis. Not many details about that one yet (I assume it'll be a lunch session somewhere in downtown Cleveland) but when I find out more, I'll post it.

But needless to say, if you're an aspiring, rookie, intermediate or veteran writer--or even a serious reader--don't for a moment limit yourself to those events. There are so many more worth taking in, if you can. On Friday of this week, you can join my friends Jeff Hess and Mac's Backs Suzanne D at the PWLGC open house. A bit further east, the new Cleveland Heights Library will celebrate its grand reopening with a day of events on September 16th. Our gifted friends Kristin Ohlson (check out her new blog) and Michael Ruhlmann will be among the featured speakers. Meanwhile, Mike will also be the featured speaker at the annual Case convocation, the kickoff to the school year. This coming weekend, the westside-based writers' group Skyline Writers holds its annual writer's conference on Saturday, where Sarah Sphar, editor of Northern Ohio Live, will speak. It's not too late to register for that excellent event, expertly cobbled together by the talented writer Claudia Taller (who just published her first-ever piece today in Cool Cleveland, a review of the recent Tremont Art Walk).

I would be there in a moment to watch Claudia, Sarah and a few other pals and acquaintances in action, if I were going to be around that day. So please consider taking my place, if you can. In fact, let me up the ante. A free registration to that conference awaits the first two readers who email me today at the email address above (just put "Skyline Writers Conference" in the subject heading, please). And enjoy the rest of your week, will you? I'll be back in action here on Monday.

Potpourri Friday

Last year, I wrote about a week that was so full of learning, discovery, fun, excitement and opportunity, a week so pregnant with possibility that I now think, looking back at it, that I didn't even begin to really describe it. I suppose I was just too wrapped up in all the energy to be able to step back and describe it well. Or possibly I'm a poor writer. Or maybe both.

Anyway, I had another one of those weeks this week. And yet, as of this writing, I've barely begun my Friday, and it too will be overflowing, filled with interesting things and great people, not the least of which will involve being on hand to watch and hear two remarkable individuals who are coming to town today, two people who I think are certified American masters, writer Annie Lamott and Congressman Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania.

As some readers may recall, I wrote about Murtha last November, in this longish bit of musing which I headlined "Maybe All it Takes is One Tough Democrat." He'll be at the City Club for one of their patented luncheon addresses today, and I'm sure the room will be overflowing. A few hours later, I'll be a hundred blocks to the east, on the Case campus, in the Gothic loveliness of Amasa Stone Chapel (a testament to Cleveland's enormous legacy wealth), to hear a lady that I can't believe I've never even mentioned once in this space. Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is easily one of the five (or perhaps two or three) most powerful books ever written about the writing impulse, how to harness it, what to do with it, how to understand it. Just please read it, if you haven't already (you can find links to all her books here, but my suggestion is that you order and buy from an independent bookstore, more about which below).

But her later books, especially Traveling Mercies, are equally powerful, though different experiences. She's a poet and a mystic and a prophet and a patriot and the most honest, most moving, most luminous, soul-stirring Christian writing today, perhaps in the entire English language. And all from lefty Marin County, across the bridge from San Fran. And it's all free. Thanks to my favorite indy bookstore proprietor, Mac's Backs Suzanne D. (who doubles as one of Cleveland's chief instigators and supporters of all things having to do with books, writing and the life of the mind), for tipping me off early to this event, via a timely poster beneath the register.

For a preview of what's to come with Lamott, the PD's Evelyn Theiss, a talented reporter and writer, and an old acquaintance from back in the days when she was a dazzling staff writer at Cleveland Magazine (I'll never forget a remarkable piece she did on union corruption, which ended with her quoting a Teamster basically threatening her and her employer), wrote this piece in yesterday's P.D. It's a lovely Q&A from a phone interview she did with Lamott. She also mentioned Lamott briefly in this book review she wrote back in 2000, when she was still the paper's fashion editor.

Now you please have a lovely day, gentle reader, and an even lovelier weekend. And tomorrow, perhaps, I'll tell you about a Working With Words essay contest, whose winners will lay claim to an Anne Lamott book of their choice.

Support the Independents!

It suddenly dawned on me about a month ago. I was at a Border's Bookstore, about to make a purchase after having cruised around for an hour. And then I realized: Suzanne at Mac's Backs may not have this book in stock at the moment, but she can certainly order it and have it to me in a few days. And I can surely wait for it. I figured it's a small price to pay to keep the handful of remaining Cleveland-area indy bookshops alive and healthy. Or at least alive. In the month or more since, I've ordered a couple more books from her that way. And perhaps in the fall, I'll begin doing the same with the Learned Owl in Hudson, and then maybe Fireside in Chagrin Falls. I'm already in the habit of stopping by Loganberry Books in the Larchmere area and at the lovely Appletree books on Cedar Hill in Cleveland Heights, and chatting briefly with the ever-knowledgeable proprietor, Jane Kessler (who's nicely profiled here by my old Cleveland Edition colleague Kathy Ewing). Eventually, I'll get in a routine of more regularly patronizing all half dozen remaining indy bookstores in this area. And I hope you'll do begin doing the same, gentle reader. I plan on occasionally reminding you about it.

But why stop at getting in the habit of supporting these community jewels, these food-for-the-brain emporiums? How about doing the same with locally owned and operated restaurants, which are just as threatened by national chains as their bookstore counterparts. But how can you tell an indy eatery from a chain, you ask? There's one really easy way. Go to this site, and graze around. I guarantee you you'll find several places that will make you happy (Gavi's in Lake County is a special treat). Your stomach will thank you for it. And I will too.

Dennis Can't Get No Respect

Poor Dennis. He barely registered a pulse even in his home state in yesterday's Democratic primary. And it'll only get worse for him, now that the nomination contest is over, with Edwards dropping out. There'll be no more reason for Kerry to even pretend to engage the two remaining challengers, Kucinich and Sharpton. Now he can put all his attention where it belongs, on beating the dreadful Bush.

The Free Times' David Eden got another 15 minutes of national fame (the last came when his thoughts were sought out after the infamous attempted closing of the paper by its then-owner, the Village Voice), with a quote in yesterday's Times story about Kucinich's lack of respect even in his hometown. Times readers can't be faulted for thinking that all things Cleveland are just a bit dreary, if Kucinich and Harvey Pekar are their only guides. Neither seems to have mustered even a weak smile since the Truman administration. In fact, the game of media pile-on has begun in earnest. The Washington Post's stylish feature writer Hank Stuever poked fun yesterday at the "Nobody's Listening to Dennis Kucinich Show," noting the "increase in snackage" among members of the media while its Kucinich's turn to talk in the debates.

I know I should probably be upset about this, but I can't pretend that I am. As you probably know if you've been a reader for awhile, I'm no big Dennis fan. I find him a little too (actually a lot too) humorless and just plain lacking in some form of recognizable human warmth, rather on the order of Ralph Nader. And a small but illuminating scene which just unfolded a few hours ago on the Case campus reminded me once again of what I don't like about the guy.

A ponytailed militant in a Kucinich campaign T-shirt tried his best this afternoon to disrupt an otherwise interesting informal author appearance by Nation columnist Katha Pollitt. Now, to most of the world, she's a conventionally doctrinaire liberal, a useful tool in throwing stones against the establishment. But she apparently wasn't militant enough in her political critique for this fool, who embarrassed himself with a series of outbursts, reading paranoid rants against the media and the political order from his notebook, interrupting her at every chance. When the audience piped up and insisted that he let her speak, he responded: "Now, don't get nasty!" Then he began muttering under his breath.

I became an instant Katha Pollitt fan after watching how she handled it all. Rather than cut him off or use her quick wit to make him seem the fool, she engaged him as best she could for as long as she could. But--and this was the real surprise for me--she reached a point after awhile where she decided not to be cowed by some unrealistic PC notion of freedom of speech, which might have called for her and the entire audience to just put up with this idiot no matter what. After awhile, sensing that the room had had enough, and that the guy was clearly abusing his privileges, she lit into him in a measured way, just enough to put him in his place without being too severe. Knowing that he was beat, he shut up. And the event came to a close soon thereafter.

Chalk one up for common sense. But as a representative of Kucinich supporters, this boorish dolt will be a hard image to erase from my memory in this lifetime.

Two Headlines Say It All. As a relatively new convert/reader, I've found Poets & Writers Magazine an increasingly tasty treat, full of much food for thought. This story, about the Portland, Oregon-based writer Chuck P., who has built something of a cult following of late, certainly got me thinking. But mostly, I just appreciate all the care and thought that goes into the pub. Among my favorite things in the new issue are two especially apt article titles, neither of which I think needs any additional comment: "Talent as Persistence" and "Talking on Paper." That's what it's all about...

Take This List With You. Planning any one-tank trips in the Great Lakes region this spring. The ever-bookish Ms. Suzanne D. of Coventry's Mac's Backs points out a group to which she belongs, the Great Lakes Booksellers Association. On its website, you'll find this comprehensive list of all the independent bookstores in the region. My goal is to visit each at least once before I die. It's a long list, but hell, I've got years, right?...

Tell Me a Story. A friend and reader of Working With Words recently pointed out something that I'd never thought of. He noted that mine is one of the few "narrative blogs," which for some, perhaps, is an oxmoron. Generally, to blog is to write in bursts of bite-sized, quick-read thoughts. But heck, I've always figured this is just plain old writing, carried to a new medium, and just left it at that. Besides, my friend may only have been calling attention to my wordiness.

But narrative is crucial, I think. And it arises from an elemental human hunger, to hear a story. I'm not generally a big fan of the conservative American Spectator Magazine, whose founder Emmett Tyrell, Jr., has been resourceful enough to keep it afloat since founding it as an undergrad at the University of Indiana more than 30 years ago. He's recently found a new sugar daddy to fund his magazine, millionaire publisher Alfred Regnery, whose publishing house as something of the vanity press of the hard right in America.

Anyway, I digress. What caught my eye in the current issue was a dazzling lead paragraph in an otherwise workmanlike piece by U.S. News & World Report's Michael Barone. It went like this: "Tell me a story. That is what a child asks at bedtime, and what voters ask at election time. The power of a story, a narrative, is compelling in politics. Votes want to know how we got where we are, and where we are heading in the future: narrative supplies answers, makes sense of the messiness of everyday life and events. A political party which has a convincing and compelling narrative has a great advantage over the competition." Well said, and utterly true. Isn't that what really set Bill Clinton apart as the class of his generation of pols, his dazzling abilities as the most polished and compelling crafter of political narrative perhaps since FDR? They tended to compensate for all of his other, well-documented shortcomings.

And now comes NYU law professor Stephen Gillers, normally a sober, go-to commentator in national reporters' Rolodexes when the subject is the law. In this morning's Times editorial page, he makes a simple, eye-opening suggestion: with Clinton barred from ever again seeking election as president, but with the Dems dead-set on retaking the White House whatever it takes, why not consider Clinton as a VP running mate for Kerry? It summons memories of the almost tag team of Reagan and former Prez Gerald Ford, who came close to teaming up for a run in 1980 before Ford chickened out. I think the piece opened many eyes to an interesting idea that has more than a little merit, if only Kerry is secure enough to take on a #2 who might well overshadow him, and Clinton is egoless enough not to be worried about taking a back seat in order to win a larger cause. In the end, though, what would probably prevent that dream team pairing is money: Clinton would have to foresake all the millions he's now making on the lecture circuit. But we can dream, can't we?

Bookstores We Have Loved

I was in Columbus yesterday, and so that meant one thing simply had to be worked into the schedule: at least a 90-minute wander around the city's best indy bookshop, the Book Loft in the splendid German Village section of town. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a more appealing bookstore in the entire state of Ohio (and trust me, the bricks & mortars are quite a bit more appealing than their terrible website). It's in a century-plus converted home, with perhaps 20 rooms, stuffed floor to ceiling with books. The only minor negative: there's no room to put a sofa or even a chair.

Coffee shops and similar places for gathering, thinking and composing one's thoughts are of course key components of any area's writing and literary life, but for my money bookstores are even more important. In the last decade, Borders and then Barnes & Noble have obviously ravaged the pool of independents, as the twin superchains marched through the country like General Sherman bearing down on Atlanta.

In Cleveland, a handful of independent shops have somehow survived, but each is relatively small and thus highly niched, and therefore unequipped to take the role once occupied by, say, Booksellers before its demise about six years ago. Appletree Books on Cedar Hill in Cleveland Heights is perhaps the tiniest, and its owner is about 80. The Learned Owl in Hudson is a pretty nice experience, but it closes before dinner most nights. The shop on W. 25th probably has the best selection of local stuff, new and used. Suzanne Degatano's Mac's Backs in Coventry, adjoining Tommy's, is easily the most serious about supporting writers and writing, hosting frequent booksignings and writers' meetings. Its owner serves as a board member/advisor/champion of everything from the Poets & Writers League to the new publication Urban Dialect. And cozy Fireside Bookshop in Chagrin Falls actually has some reasonable space for books, and it seems to take seriously its role as a literary center for the prosperous Chagrin Valley. The newest regional entrant is also in many ways the most interesting: Joseph-Beth. The jury is still out about these folks: the first Cleveland-area location has some of the feel of the old Booksellers while also somehow retaining at least a bit of a feel of the chain store. And we'll see if the Shaker Square location long survives the rocky retailing environment of its neighborhood, especially after it opens a new store in October in Lyndhurst's new Legacy Village, just a half hour walk (oh, joy) from my house.

Still, ever since some of us watched in horror as an unsmiling liquidator presided over a going-out-of-business sale at Booksellers in Beachwood, with owner Joan Hulbert off somewhere else as they closed down her baby, once a mecca for book enthusiasts, the sad reality is that this has been a second-rate book town. Don't even get older book lovers started about the demise of the hallowed downtown stores. They'll yack in your ear for hours.

And so hardened bookshop afficianados are left with occasional visits to our favorite out-of-town places. And for me, only one renowned destination remains unvisited: Denver's vaunted Tattered Cover. I've read about it, and pulled more detail from friends who have lived or visited there. And yet I've somehow never yet made it there myself. But thank god we have some family in Portland, Oregon. That's given me the chance to visit the even more revered Powell's City of Books a handful of times, including last year. While lots of well-known bookstores go for the upscale feel, Powell's has taken a contrary approach, with its city-block-square main location having the feel of a giant book warehouse. The star here is books, it seems to say, not spiffy furnishings and interiors.

Boston, for all its reputation as the Athens of America (for its thick concentration of colleges and universities) lost its best bookstore a few years ago, the impossibly appealing Harvard Bookstore on Newbury Street. It's yet to replace it with anything as interesting, in my opinion. Chicago, where we lived for a time, still has the venerable Barbara's Bookstore, on North Wells, about halfway between the Loop and Lincoln Park. While reasonably compact, it's worth browsing for hours. Unfortunately, in '95 my favorite (and even more venerable) Windy City bookshop, Stuart Brent Books, closed due to the retirement of its owner of the same name. But my guess is that the escalating rents along the booming Magnificent Mile didn't help any. It was a miracle of old-world bookishness, adorned with dozens of reminders of legendary Chicago authors like Saul Bellow who frequented the joint and its predecessor, Seven Stairs. The perfect place for a book lover to while the hours while a spouse visits more prosaic places such as Water Tower Place nearby.

But Washington, D.C., where I lived for a few years in the '80s, probably still has the best concentration of indy bookstores anywhere outside of Manhattan (which itself has been ravaged by chains, losing the likes of such neighborhood institutions as Shakespeare & Co.). Kramer Books at Dupont Circle is a bit cramped, but a Friday-night institution. Olsson Books & Records in Georgetown is a Saturday-afternoon-wanderer's delight, its owner having adapted to the realities of chain competition by holding his nose and selling Beany Babies. And perhaps best of all is Politics & Prose in upper Northwest, which to my regret opened just down the street from where we once lived, after we moved away. In any event, I couldn't pass within a hundred miles of that shop--no, make that I couldn't pass through the mid-Atlantic region--without making sure the itinerary somehow includes at least a brief stop there.

Having set the stage with this admittedly impressionistic roundup of bookstores in various cities, tomorrow I'll bring you word of a new study on America's most literate cities, which is considerably less impressionistic, full of actual research. Stop back to see where Cleveland ranks...

Get Your Nominations In

Best line encountered recently:

"He is a fine man who smiles at you with his whole face..."
--Mary Bradley Marable, a Cleveland actress who appeared in the movie Antoine Fisher, speaking about director and co-star Denzel Washington, as quoted in the spring newsletter of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese's Office of Ministry to African American Catholics.

If you ever tire of the whole coordinated Cleveland establishment and their coordinated, lowest-common-denominator decisions about the best this and the best that, please remember that there really is an alternative world of other groups with fresher ideas. Take Community Shares, for instance. Once ignored as a band of aging Heights social-venture hippies not so long ago, it has since become institutionalized as a real alternative to United Way. And it raises hundreds of thousands for causes in this town that the big daddy and its CEO volunteers find a little too controversial.
Anyway, to the point: Shares hosts an annual round of awards for social justice, and one that especially interests me is their award for social justice reporting. A contradiction in terms in these days of ever-safer local media you say? Well, almost. A couple of recent winners, the PD's Mike O'Malley in 2000 and Roldo Bartimole in 2001, were no-brainers. Roldo's merely been doing it for over 30 years, and soulful Michael O (whom I got to know and respect when I did some work for him at United Press International in the late '80s) is easily the conscience of the paper's beat reporters.
With that as background, Shares is looking for nominations for this year's award. But you'll need to get to it fast. Nominations are due by this Friday, May 2. Go to this page, fill out the nomination form, and get your voice heard.
My nominee for this year: Charlise Lyles. You probably haven't heard of her, but you should. She's the editor of an excellent foundation-funded magazine, Catalyst for Cleveland Schools, that covers the Cleveland schools in a knowing, aggressive manner, with just enough advocacy but plenty of independence too. It's a sister publication of an organization in Chicago that for over 30 years has been publishing a fearless, peerless voice known as The Chicago Reporter (tagline: Investigating Race and Poverty in Chicago Since 1972).
When it came to Cleveland in 1999, Charlise was tapped to edit. She proved an immediate success, even though her publication is far too little-known outside of the public schools and foundation circles. Then, about a year ago, while wandering through the local history section of the wonderfully shabby W. 25 St. Bookstore, I found out why her voice resonated so deeply on this subject. I came upon a memoir she wrote about her climb from the Cleveland housing projects to her later success as a journalist. Her moving book is called Do I Dare Disturb the Universe: From the Projects to Prep School. It's available on Amazon for $10, and I'm going to make it a personal goal to get this book stocked in a few other local independent bookstores, starting with the best of them all, Suzanne's Mac's Backs on Coventry. Perhaps we can even coax the far-too-modest Charlise to talk about her work, life and publication in some future event(s).