The Ones THAT GET AWAY

A long list, a category unto itself, an album of if-onlys—

And I don’t mean all the ones I’ve taken that just don’t work because too close, too far, too fuzzy, too something (or else not enough)—

It’s the ones I don’t (didn’t) take at all. [ Visit COMP Journal ]

Brevity’s New Issue & Expanded Teaching Resources

Brevity’s 67th issue launches this morning, with startling flash essays from Beth Ann Fennelly, David Mura, Irina Dumitrescu, Abigail Thomas, Bret Lott, Elizabeth Dodd, Pam Durban, Amy Monticello, Carrie Jade Williams, Cameron Steele, Joe Plicka. Yi Shun Lai, Sabrina Hicks, Sarah Ebba Hansen, and L.I. Henley, and stunning photos from essayist Dinah Lenney.

Bulletproof Coffee to Bulletproof Vest: An Object Lessons Interview

As contributors to the Object Lessons series from Bloomsbury, Dinah Lenney and Kenneth R. Rosen each chose to investigate the deeper meaning and implication of a thing they encounter with some frequency—Dinah as a writer of memoir and personal essay, Ken as a war correspondent. 

How We Are.

How We Are

By Dinah Lenney • Jun 18, 2020

How am I. Having just this morning broken up the puzzle on the kitchen table (Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”), I am wondering which one to do next, which picture to live with for however long it lasts (the puzzle, the pandemic

I Can’t Stop Buying Coffee Scoops

By Dinah Lenney • April 15, 2020

Altered States

by Dinah Lenney • April 12, 2020

The Deep Metaphorical Power of a Good Cup of Coffee

Coffee, Aging, and Changing Tastes
by Dinah Lenney • March 19, 2020
Brevity
Brevity
Brevity

The Problem of the Now: A Conversation with Sally Ashton

Dinah Lenney interviews Sally Ashton [Read on this site]

Once Upon a Time in Los Angeles: Kathryn Harrison’s “On Sunset”

by Dinah Lenney

A Cry in the Dark: Dinah Lenney Interviews David L. Ulin

The New Ohio Review Fall Issue #22
Dinah Lenney On Natalia Ginzburg's "Human Relations"

[pdf]

Where Are They? Where Do They Go?

Summer 2019, Jamie Smyth and Dinah Lenney

LARB
A Longer Reach: Thanksgiving 2016

November 26, 2016, by Dinah Lenney

the Paris Review
Jar Watch

October 14, 2016, Dinah Lenney

Superstition Review
This and That

September 03, 2016, Dinah Lenney [Read This and That on this site]

Limits by Dinah Lenney

This month we're delighted to present a talk about turning life into art and an essay that turns life into art by the wonderful Dinah Lenney.

LARB
Winter 2015

August 5, 2015, Dinah Lenney on H Is for Hawk

LARB Digital Edition: Memoir
[Kindle Edition]

Dinah Lenney (Author, Editor)

LARB Quarterly Journal
Winter 2015

March 3, 2015 by Tom Lutz (Editor)

DL interviews Meghan Daum

I'VE BEEN SCROLLING through some of the praise for Meghan Daum’s new collection of essays, one of those... [Full Text]

Dinah Lenney, to Judith Kitchen

How shall I begin? (How shall you begin? How shall she begin
...[Full Text]

DL interviews J. Ryan Stradal

A YEAR AGO, Outpost19, an independent press based in San Francisco and New York, published the first California... [Full Text]

Not-Quite-Naked

Tuesday, June 24, 2014 —A writer friend of mine published a story, a family drama that featured a young couple... [Full Text]

Brevity

Consider the Prompt

September 16, 2014 —A little background: I heard a celebrated writer say that. That is, she’d written it... [Full Text]

Future Imperfect

May 12, 2014
view this post at Bending Genre

JayWalking

at from the vortex
April. 28, 2014 — Not that you’d do it just for kicks (you’d have to have slew of much better reasons... [Post]

The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Parade

In the beginning—or somewhere in the middle actually—there was a parade. A parade of.. [Full Text]

SINGING LESsONS

at from the vortex
Nov. 29, 2013— Singing Lessons... [Post]

THIS OLD WATCH

This old watch isn’t really that old, not in the sense of family heirlooms. It isn’t a watch at all, in fact. It’s only the casing, the exterior, the glass... [Full Text]

Agni

METRONOME

I have a piano. And I have an old bench—came with my husband—works fine for playing, works even better... [Full Text]

Los Angeles Review of Books

Cell Phone Diaries

I’M SEATED next to a colleague at a celebratory dinner (a charming, young-ish man) delighted to have his attention, of course... [Full Text]

DINAH LENNEY

at The Gamut

The SOUTHAMPTON REVIEW

Vol. VII, No. 2 Summer 2013
Why Memoir Matters More Than Ever? Featuring work by Susan Cheever, Billy Collins, Sven Birkerts, Dinah Lenney and many, many more!

Why Genre Matters

THIS CONVERSATION began as a panel at AWP — the annual convention for creative writing programs and teachers — with Dinah... [Full Text]

Sr blog

Guest Blog Post: On Finding a Palette In Just the Right Key

A confession: I am—in the car, for instance, or on my stationery bike—likely to listen to oldie... [Full Text]

Brevity

Instructions, As If

If I were brave, if I could commit to anything, I’d say scatter me in o... [Full Text]

Southampton Review

Dear Mr. Roth,

The Southhampton Review
Volume VII, No. 1 Spring 2013

Spaces

CHANDELIER

Ironworks. A chandelier—enormous, cumbersome — hangs from a heavy, black chain (same material) over my kitchen table. Deceptive tot... [Full Text]

Los Angeles Review of Books

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WAIT

HOW TO DO IT. How to write about the things we see, hear, read, think about? The things that move us. How to get... [Full Text]

PrimeNumber

OBJECT PARADE: ACORN

Where could it have come from? Fred picked it up in the driveway the other day and brought it inside. A deep brown—as if roasted—with a tweedy little... [Full Text]

Huffington Post Crime

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

"Have you had anything to drink, Madam?" asked the patrolman. "Yes, I have," I answered. Slowly... [Full Text]

Ploughshares

MISSING LUCILE

Recommended by Dinah Lenney Suzanne Berne's father was six years old when his mother died... [Full Text]

Washington Post

THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES

by Héctor Tobar — Book review by Dinah Lenney. In "Translation Nation," an account of the Latino experience across America published in 2005, Héctor Tobar recalled his father, a Guatemalan immigrant, telling him... [Full Text]

LA Reviwe of Books

DINAH LENNEY

Speaking of Ghosts: For months now, I've been reading David Grossman's To the End of the Land — which I want to finish, but also I don't. A poet friend, David Biespiel... [Full Text]

LA Review of Books

BE THOU THE VOICE

The difference between classical music and jazz, said the well-known conductor, is that with classical, the music is always greater than the performance. He'd been invited... [Full Text]

Brevity

Against Knowing by Dinah Lenney

Here's a story about one of those times that made all the difference: I was in the middle of getting my MFA in a low residency program – also... [Full Text]

Creative Nonfiction

Dinah Lenney - "THE DINNER PARTY"

Chet Baker croons in the background; the cocktail shaker rattles like a tambourine; candles are lit; colored paper lantern... [Issue 41 / Spring 2011]

LA Times Op-Ed

COMING TO TERMS WITH CHRISTMAS

OP-ED — Growing up, we didn't do Christmas. We celebrated Hanukkah. But then came marriage and a family, and well... [Full Text]

Agni

FLIGHT JACKET by Dinah Lenney

Ingrate. My daughter the beautiful ingrate. It was supposed to have gone with her to college, to Boston. That was the plan, and she left it in her closet.[Full Text]

La Times Entertainment

Reissues of 'Instead of a Letter' and 'After a Funeral'

by Diana Athill
Book Review, Los Angeles Times — Diana Athill, longtime British editor of such writers as Philip Roth, V.S. Naipaul... [Full Text]

La Times Entertainment

'If You Knew Suzy' by Katherine Rosman

Book Review, Los Angeles Times — Suzy Rosin developed an ugly cough in the fall of 2002, was diagnosed with lung cancer early the following... [Full Text]

The Kenyon Review Read at The Kenyon Review
Superstition

OBJECT PARADE: COFFEE TABLE

By Dinah Lenney  featured on Superstion Review — Built, so goes the story -- so says Fred, my husband -- in some remote corner of Vermont, with instructions to make it solid enough for a woman to...[Full Text]

Defunt

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

By Dinah Lenney featured on Defunct.com — PEOPLE ARE SO fundamentally hopeful, aren’t they, and all the time looking for signs. You meet the one–the fact that your parents...[Full Text]

LA Times Article Collections

'MAKING TOAST: A Family Story' by Roger Rosenblatt

Book Review, Los Angeles Times | Article Collection — On Dec. 8, 2007, the day that Amy Rosenblatt Solomon collapsed on the treadmill and died, her parents, Roger and Ginny Rosenblatt... [Full Text]

The Coachella Review

THIS SPOON

The Coachella Review — This spoon, flattened, not a spoon at all, couldn’t spoon anything, no, it’s a fossil, an effigy, a spoon for a paper doll... [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney Winter 2010

La Times Entertainment

ARTS & CULTURE

'Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession' by Julie Powell The author of "Julie and Julia" returns with a memoir that combines foodie interests and troubled personal relationships.... [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney November 29, 2009

La Times Entertainment

ARTS & CULTURE

'The Writer's Life' Amy Gerstler's message: Be not afraid The poet wishes more people would realize that her medium doesn't hurt. At all.... [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney September 27, 2009

La Times Entertainment

BOOK REVIEW

'Nothing Was the Same' by Kay Redfield Jamison The writer's long struggles with depression give extra weight to her memoir on grief... [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney September 18, 2009

La Times Entertainment

OFF THE SHELF

How I inhabit the Earth To the fervent reader and writer, the words on a page encompass the whole wide world and their place in it. [Full Text]

Chaparral

Object Parade: Little Black Dress

Should you pack the dress? The little black dress? A sleeveless shift, darts at the bust, comes to just above the knee

LA Times Book Review

BOOK REVIEW

'Closing Time' by Joe Queenan
A memoir of growing up in extremely difficult circumstances in the City of Brotherly Love. [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney April 15, 2009

AGNI

Essays

coming soon in AGNI

Water Stone Review

and WATER~STONE

Brevity

Also in Brevity

LA Times

OPINION

'ER' and the end of Nurse Shirley
An actress' postmortem on her character in the long-running TV series... [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney April 2, 2009

LA Times

BOOK REVIEW

'So Long at the Fair: A Novel' by Christina Schwarzs
Count on Christina Schwarz to tackle the ties that bind -- family, friendship, marriage... [Full Text]
By Dinah Lenney July 14, 2008

LA Times

OPINION

The graduate, hovering
'Enjoy the ride,' the parents' card says, as the daughter readies for a life 3,000 miles away.
By Dinah Lenney July 1, 2008  [Full Text]

LA Times

BOOK REVIEW

'Assisted Loving' by Bob Morris
After his mother's death, the author helps his 80yr-old father to find a companion. Dating isn't easy for Dad.
By Dinah Lenney, Special to The Times
June 3, 2008 [Full Text]

LA Times

BOOK REVIEW

'The Lyncher in Me' by Warren Read
A man's search for his family's history turns up a vengeful ancestor.
By Dinah Lenney, Special to The Times
March 18, 2008 [Full Text]

LATimes

BOOK REVIEW

'Dough: A Memoir'  by Mort Zachter
Remembering a lifetime of hard work in the family bakery... Special to The Times - November 3, 2007
[Full Text]

LATimes

LA's area code obsession

Published in Los Angeles Times Print Edition : Opinion
October 7th 2007
[Full Text]

LA Times Calendar Live

'The Fires' by Alan Cheuse

Special to The Times
September 1, 2007
[Full Text]

NY Times Magazine

Ghost in the Dream

Published in The New York Times - Magazine Feb, 18th 2007
[Full Text]

LATimes

Life Skills, LAUSD Style

Published in LA Times - Opinion Jan 2007
[Full Text]

AGNI

Deal

Published in AGNI
September 2006
[Full Text]

Get On The Bus

Signs

Pubished in Get On The Bus
City Space, San Francisco 2006
[Full Text]

LATimes

To De-Bag or Not

Published in LA Times
July 2005
[Full Text]