06.07.2012 - Idyllwild Town Crier

By Marshall Smith
Staff Reporter
Eduardo Santiago’s popular
Idyllwild Author Series
will feature a two for one
bonus on Sunday, June 17.
Amy Friedman and Dennis
Danziger, two writers who
happen to be married to each
other will be the next guest
speakers.
Friedman is the author
of the long-running syndicated
newspaper column
and series of audio books,
“Tell Me a Story,” teaches
writing at UCLA Extension,
blogs for the Huffington Post
and recently completed “The
Murderer’s House,” a memoir
of her 7-year marriage to a
man in prison.
Danziger, Friedman’s
present husband, teaches
English at Venice High
School in Los Angeles, collaborates
with Friedman
producing “Stories by Venice
High School Seniors,”
a PEN In the Classroom
Anthology, and also writes
about divorce in his recently
completed a laugh-out-loud
novel, “A Short History of a
Tall Jew (Deal Street Press,
2010), Danziger, when asked
how Santiago might moderate
the conversation given
two writers with different
styles and genres, laughed
and said, “Amy and I have
never been at a loss for
words. He might just have
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Idyllwild Town Crier, June 7, 2011 - Page 17
First double bill at Idyllwild Authors Series
Amy Friedman and Dennis Danziger
Amy Friedman
Photo by Marshall Smith
to ask one question and
we’d go from there.”
Before beginning his
teaching career, Danziger
wrote freelance for television
in the decade from 1980 to
1990. His careers have been
as he anticipated while at the
University of Texas, Austin.
When thinking about declaring
a major, he wrote down
his goals — to be a writer, a
high school English teacher
and a basketball coach. He’s
proud that from barrio high
schools at which he’s taught,
many of his graduates go on
to quality universities such as
UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC
Santa Cruz and some have
been published. “You can still
get a good education within
the Los Angeles public school
system,” he said.
Danziger begins “Short
History” with an account
of how his character starts
each day, since divorcing his
former wife. She constantly
hounded him to appear again
and again in family court,
with serious financial consequences.
“Every night for
the past twenty-some odd
months I’ve said the same
prayer before collapsing into
bed. ‘Blessed art Thou, Lord
our God, Creator of it all,
please watch over my beautiful
but ill-mannered children.
And once Lord, just once
before Zack and Lily turn
18, please let me win one
hearing in Department 18 of
Family Court, 111 North Hill
Street, County of Los Angeles,
Judge Isadore Brownstein,
who hates my guts, presiding.
Good-night now.’”
Danziger has his students
keep a journal to develop
their voices. “Whatever they
write, they can share or not.
It’s their own journal. No
pressure, no one looking over
their shoulder. Some have
told me it’s the only place
where they have a safe place
and voice.”
Friedman works with
Danziger’s Venice High students
on shaping their writing,
editing and re-editing.
The finished pieces, some of
which she finds extraordinary,
are then published as
part of the PEN anthology
project. “Dennis sets up the
process with the students
in the semester prior to my
coming in,” she said. “That
way they’re prepared. It works
very well. They find their
voices and write and teach
their truths.”
Friedman, like Danziger,
an engaging and gifted conversationalist,
has also pursued
a varied career path
involving teaching, writing
and in place of Danziger’s
basketball coaching, journalism.
She left New York and
moved to Canada to write
a column for a small paper.
That job landed a syndicated
column that evolved into her
widely successful “Tell Me a
Story,” now also produced in
audio CD with music.
In writing about her 7-
year marriage to a man in
prison, Friedman’s style is
achingly evocative. “I’d never
talked with anyone the way I
talked with my ex. Never had
that kind of time. Nobody
does. But he was a prisoner,
and for nearly seven years
we sat and talked for hours
every day, feet sticking to
linoleum floors, butts aching
from hard-backed chairs,
eyes stinging from smoke,
hands sweaty, hearts fluttering,
limbs aching to touch.
… He was paroled, and on
parole he tried to combat his
depression by building walls,
first a sea wall of concrete
blocks along the St. Lawrence
River, and then he kept going,
walling off as much of our
property as he could, but in
the end it couldn’t keep him
in.” (from Friedman’s blog
Dennis Danziger reading.
Photo courtesy of
Dennis Danziger.
entry,“The Moment I Knew”
on Huffington Post.)
Of her teaching, and her
experience in co-writing with
another, editing and shaping
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the words of others, Friedman
said it began with her grandmother,
who had chosen to
stop talking. “I knew she had
something to say. I started by
giving voice, in my writing,
to someone who could not
speak. I think it is because
I’m a natural empath that I
enjoy that process [of understanding
the circumstances
and thoughts of another and
helping to shape and present
that voice to others].”
Friedman and Danziger
appear with Santiago at 2
p.m. at the INK Bookstore
on North Circle. The event
is free to the public.
M a r s h a l l S m i t h
c a n b e r e a c h e d a t
marshall@towncrier.com.
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at Village Market. Earlier one customer had dutifully asked
the cashier inside about the price and was surprised when
told they were free. All were happy.
Photo by Marshall Smith
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