Faber and Profile land Bennett's 'irresistible' pandemic diary

From thebookseller.com

Faber and Profile Books have jointly acquired Alan Bennett’s House Arrest: The Pandemic Diaries, a year of the writer’s reflections on Covid and confinement from March 2020. 

World English rights, excluding USA and Canada, were acquired from Charles Walker at United Agents. The hardback edition will be published on 5th May, a few days before Bennett’s 88th birthday.

Bennett’s diary takes the reader from the filming of "Talking Heads" to thoughts on Boris Johnson, from his father’s short-lived craze for family fishing trips, to stairlifts, junk shops of old, having a haircut, and encounters on the local park bench. 

"A lyrical afterword describes the journey home to Yorkshire from London’s King’s Cross station via fish and chips on Quebec Street, past childhood landmarks of Leeds, through Coniston Cold, over the infant River Aire, and on," the synopsis states. 

Bennett has been a leading dramatist since Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His works include "Talking Heads", "The Lady in the Van", the Oscar-nominated "The Madness of George III", "The History Boys", the PEN/Ackerley Prize-winning Untold Stories (Faber) and, more recently, Keeping On, Keeping On (Profile/Faber.)

Dinah Wood, editorial director for drama at Faber, said: "Even during lockdown, Alan Bennett’s diary offers an irresistible combination of memories, jokes, local incident and social commentary. And whether he’s delighting in a hot lunch or mourning the closure of a favourite second-hand bookshop, the entries gain a particular poignancy from his place of house arrest."

Rebecca Gray, Souvenir Press publisher and associate publisher Profile and Serpent’s Tail, added: "This is one of our favourite things to do – not just to work with the legend that is Alan Bennett, but to do so alongside our friends at Faber. These diaries stand alongside his best – witty, reflective, wry. If there’s anyone I want to remind me what being in lockdown was like, it’s Alan Bennett."

https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/faber-and-profile-land-bennetts-irresistible-pandemic-diary 

Journaling: The greatest hug you can give yourself

From eminetracanada.com

Blog post by Katy Miller

When it comes to self-care, journaling can provide the highest return on investment. Bringing a pen to paper will reward you in all aspects of your emotional, mental, physical and spiritual life.

Clean up your heart

Recording the internal mechanics helps you reorganize your story and prioritize your needs. Your feelings mean you can feel, and by writing them down, you literally move them elsewhere from your heart. This gives your emotions a foot, brings your emotions to life, and authenticates your experience somewhere good, bad, or in between.

Writing down your thoughts can ease the turmoil. With less mind clutter, you can focus on the actual work, such as planning, execution, decision making, and problem solving. A clear mind exists at that moment and creates the ability to live.

Create an outlet

Dr. James W. Penebaker and Joshua M. Smith, pioneers of expressive writing, confront personal thoughts by writing to our basic values, thought patterns, and feelings for ourselves. Say it can affect you. According to these social psychologists who co-authored the book “Opening Up by Write it Down,” having negativeness without creating an exit to disperse negativeness significantly reduces our mental and physical well-being. May cause you to.

Writing about sadness, sadness, loneliness, anger, and fear can be difficult to express, but it can relieve emotional pain. Writing about big emotions gives you better coping, better control, and ultimately better mood. It respects emotions but limits their power over your life.

Journaling allows you to tell a story personally without making any judgment. Some people agree with the writing and tear or burn it after writing the philosophy because they benefit from the writing experience and there is no risk of exposure.

Health benefits

Some argue that the greatest reward for maintaining a journaling habit is an investment in physical health. Studies show that improving journaling not only strengthens psychosomatic medicine, but also strengthens the lymphatic system, boosts immunity, reduces depression and anxiety, lowers blood pressure, improves sleep, and heals chronic pain.

Just keeping a gratitude diary can have a positive effect on your health in just two weeks after you start your regular practice. Dr. Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale University and the creator and facilitator of the well-being science course, is grateful for the improvement in well-being, not just identifying it. Is to re-experience. To be. The benefits of journaling are cumulative and manifested in the coherence of activity, so it is important to rewire the brain to make this a habit.

Journaling can be as simple or complex as you want, but there is one thing for sure. That is, there is more than one correct way to create a journal. It’s an accessible, personal journey tailored to what resonates with you when you find the mood of your own diary. Give yourself that big embrace when considering the meditative mind-clearing therapy of journaling. The ROI is very large and deserves it.

https://eminetracanada.com/journaling-the-greatest-hug-you-can-give-yourself/413706/ 

Keeping Anne Frank’s story alive in Iowa

From dailyiowan.com

Through the Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank exhibit, a tree planting ceremony, and virtual webinars, Anne Frank’s story is taught, discussed, and kept alive at the University of Iowa 

The cascading reverse-spiral staircase connects the two elements of the Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank exhibit — past and present.

The life of Anne Frank is chronicled from birth to death with photos and historical information presented in the exhibit, along with various artefacts that relate to her story. The contemporary portion of the exhibit describes the lives of four other young people who face adversity today and are on display in the first-floor rotunda.

Written nearly 80 years ago, the impact of Anne Frank’s diary has persisted. The diary, one of the most well-recognized pieces of literature of all time, has now taken form as a traveling exhibit that has made a stop at the centre of the University of Iowa campus as part of the Provost’s Global Forum, an annual event on the UI campus that is focused on global issues.

As this year’s forum, the theme is “Teaching Anne Frank” — organizers have ensured that the exhibit maintains a distinct focus on education. The museum exhibit is one of many events that contribute to keeping Frank’s story alive in Iowa.

Russell Ganim, associate provost and dean of International Programs, said Frank’s story was chosen to be amplified this year because, along with the universal knowledge that surrounds her story, the general themes addressed in the exhibit are applicable to everyone.

“This is a universal story about persistence and personal triumph,” Ganim said. “Similarly, it’s about discrimination, prejudice, bias, persecution — I think that those are themes that Iowans and really everyone can understand and learn from.”

Despite Frank’s life being marked by tragedy, readers still draw messages of hope from her diary. Carolina Kaufman, director of education and engagement at the museum, said Frank’s story still connects directly with the present, and has the potential to resonate deeply with attendees on a personal level.

“1.5 million children died,” Kaufman said, referring to the children — most of them Jewish — who were killed during World War II. “These things, you know, are hard. They’re hard topics, but we have to talk about them, and we have to do it in a way that invites people to share their own experiences.”

The exhibit will remain open until March 2. Guests can visit on the weekends from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for a self-guided tour.  Tours led by peer facilitators can also be scheduled for middle school, high school, and university groups.

                                                                               Jack McGuire

      The University of Iowa welcomes an exhibit on Anne Frank in the Old Capitol on Friday, Feb 4, 2022

Kael Sagheer, education coordinator for the Institute for Holocaust Education, facilitated the training with the peer facilitators at the UI. Emphasizing the importance of personal connection, Sagheer explained that the tour guides are not given scripts, and instead rely on their own knowledge and experiences to share Frank’s story with others.

“We want them to connect with themselves,” Sagheer said. “We want them to connect with each other, and then ultimately, we want them to connect to Anne Frank and the exhibit.”

The exhibit is also accompanied by two virtual webinars moderated by Kaufman. The first webinar will take place on Feb. 9, with a focus on historic events that tie Frank’s story to Iowa. The lens is widened in the second webinar on March 9, looking at the impact that Frank had on the literary world.

Both the webinars and the exhibit work in tandem to allow for discussion and communication. Kaufman said finding ways to remember both the historical content and modern applications is one of the most important aspects.

“The Old Capitol Museum serves as a centre for discourse, and we want to continue inviting that discourse to happen,” Kaufman said. “Anne Frank is one avenue for that. We’ve been fortunate that we were chosen as a site to host that exhibit.”

Frank’s story has several direct relationships to the state of Iowa. As a UNESCO City of Literature, Iowa City is a hub for writers. UI German instructor Kirsten Kumpf-Baele saw the connection between Frank’s writing and Iowa City and developed a plan.

Through her own research and her passion for communicating Frank’s story to others, Kumpf-Baele founded the Anne Frank Tree: Taking Root in Iowa.

On April 29, the UI will plant a sapling at the Pentacrest propagated from a chestnut tree that Frank wrote about in her diary. Kumpf-Baele was involved in the whole process, from initially sending out emails during the foundational steps to planning the planting ceremony.

“Her tree represents so much: a reminder of her and many others’ horrible stories of persecution but also a symbol of beauty, of humanity, of an undying spirit,” Kumpf-Baele wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan. “May generations feel inspired for years to come.”

Frank wrote in her diary that she wanted to go on living even after her death — and she did, Kaufman said.

“Anne Frank was a writer. That’s what she wanted to be,” Kaufman said. “Through her powerful words, we were able to understand what it was like for her growing up as a teenager, being in the family, being a Jew, all these multi-layered aspects of her identity came out through her diary.”

https://dailyiowan.com/2022/02/08/keeping-anne-franks-story-alive-in-iowa/

A voyage to the interior

From gulfnews.com

I enjoy going through my old diaries as I am reminded of experiences and emotions 

Every year I look forward to freebies from banks such as diaries, wall calendars and desk calendars. But these past few years all these organisations have tightened their belts and no gifts are forthcoming.

One bank offered me an exercise book instead, which I disdainfully declined. I thought back to a time when you were offered all these without having to ask. Sometimes, if you pushed your luck, you might even be given more than one of each. Laden with these gifts, you then distributed the extras to family and friends.

I have maintained a diary for more years than I can remember and writing down all that you did each day also served as a reminder of when, where and why. There were certain calendars that were coveted such as those of Air India. The art work was exquisite and when the year ended, you kept them as collector’s items, intending to maybe frame them some day.

Marking important dates on calendars served as a powerful reminder and made sure you never forgot birthdays, anniversaries or appointments. They also helped keep track of the passage of time and there was a sense of satisfaction when you could tear off a page as the month ended. Of course, if there were beautiful pictures or paintings, you just turned it over to the next month.

                                                              Image Credit: Shutterstock

A date in the future

Often you marvelled at how quickly a month had passed or wondered why a particular month seemed so long. I have often wondered why a month with 31 days seems interminably long as compared to 30 days. What difference does a day make? Actually, it does make a difference when you are looking forward to a date in the future and the days seem to crawl.

Calendars are comforting somehow as it is reassuring to know that time can be categorised in units. I know that one can use the calendar on one’s phone for reminders but somehow I remember things better when I can see the date circled. I don’t have to worry that I will forget an important date because all I have to do is refer to my calendar. The day I want to be reminded of has been circled and a little abbreviated note tells me exactly why this reminder is important.

Coming back to diaries, as a teenager this was an important outlet for venting if one felt frustrated by the actions of others. You could pour your heart out in these pages and it was an effective therapeutic tool. Somehow there was a tacit understanding within the family that this diary was not to be read by anyone else.

Historical value

Diaries have historical value too such as those of Samuel Pepys and Anne Frank. My diary might not offer important insights into the time period I have lived in but it is a record of my personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. I wouldn’t want anyone else to read it even when I am long gone.

Nowadays people write blogs or vlogs but these are read by a select few. Keeping a diary helps you deal with stress or negativity as jotting down your thoughts makes you mindful of what you are feeling at a particular time and helps regulate emotions.

I enjoy going through my old diaries as I am reminded of experiences and emotions that were so all-consuming at the time but now, with the passage of time, I can look back without a certain detachment and enjoy the account as something that was in the past and that perhaps helped shape me.

In the words of Martina Navratilova, “Keeping a journal of what’s going on in your life is a good way to help you distil what’s important and what’s not.”

Vanaja Rao is a freelance writer based in Hyderabad, India

https://gulfnews.com/opinion/off-the-cuff/a-voyage-to-the-interior-1.85396600