Friday, November 16, 2018

American life. The Frau tries to explain it.

Grüezi, people. It’s been awhile. So for that, here's a big American "sorry."

The Frau has been deep into her American life lately, and is still trying to make sense of it all, since not a lot of things make sense in America right now. The exciting news is that the manuscript for American Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known, which is the sequel to Swiss Life, is complete and is on its way to becoming a book. It details a lot of things The Frau wishes she had known about American life after Switzerland. In particular, she tries to answer these questions in the book:

Why does everyone in America act so outwardly happy even though we account for two-thirds of the global market for antidepressants?

Why does an announcer tell The Frau to visit Aisle 7 for laxatives every time she goes to the drug store to buy a greeting card?

Why are there no children at the playground, even in a city of 8.2 million?

Why, when The Frau looks for work-life balance, does she find frustration instead?

Why does American healthcare put profits first and people last—and why do so many Americans still vote for people who want to benefit corporations over people?

Why is The Frau treated better as a corporation than she was as a sole proprietor?

And most importantly:

Why, in today’s America, do 99 percent of us feel foreign and isolated in one way or another?

And finally:

Can the United States ever be home again?

What questions do you want answered about American life?







Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Register for the 2018 Zurich Writers Workshop

Yodelers,

The Frau needs another mental break from her own country.

Luckily she has a good excuse to take one.

The 2018 Zurich Writers Workshop, which will be held April 13-15, is going to feature two very different, but equally great workshops: Food & Travel Writing with Adam H. Graham and Drafting and Revision with Michelle Bailat-Jones

Registration just opened and The Frau would love to see some of her fellow Yodelers in April. 

If you can’t commit to the full weekend, it’s possible to just attend Pitch Perfect in Zurich, which will be held on Sunday, April 15th. Pitch Perfect in Zurich will offer live feedback on anything a writer might pitch to an editor: from query letters, freelance magazine and newspaper pitches, to personal essay pitches. To reflect reality, the participants will pitch the instructors ahead of time via email, and besides providing feedback on each submission, the panelists will discuss which submissions caught their eye in their packed inbox and why.

In any case, mid-April is a great time to visit Zurich thanks to the spring festival, Sechseläuten, where a snowman called the Böögg will be set on fire on April 16th to predict the summer weather. So enjoy a writing weekend, and then end it with a bang, the Böögg version.



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