15 Comments
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driverlessinthecity's avatar

Very impressive love to see young people like you writing so beautifully

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Noah Otte's avatar

👏👏👏 This article is a small masterpiece, Liza! 🇷🇺🇮🇱🇦🇿✡️

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Morf Morford's avatar

There's a short video that captures this essence of why we create. The title is "Why man creates" and the answer is simple, yet astounding; we create because we are convinced that we matter....

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Chen Rafaeli's avatar

yeah, I just thought along the lines....but couldn't quite articulate it. Thank you.

Maybe it's not always like that...sometimes we're convinced of nothing, in a sense that we' re not really thinking, thus are not really convinced...and the feeling isn't even of something..shaped? but rather taken apart...

But in order to continue stubbornly...under any circumstances...one needs to be slightly madly convinced at least of something...maybe being mad is one of states of being convinced, unless madness is such it's utterly depersonalizing....

Sorry, just thinking out loud.

It is for sure a great question to ponder.

I've several other potential answers, yet they mostly tie, in a way, into this one

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Dennis Grishin's avatar

As a child of former Soviet Union Jews, this was really beautiful and intently felt. Happy upcoming Hanukkah and Novi God!

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Mandalynn's avatar

Reading this makes me sad for the books you can't publish and your stories we can't read. I hope you find a sensible publisher soon.

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Doug Lovegrove's avatar

Memories eh

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Kathie Chiu's avatar

This was a great piece. How wonderful that you get to help young students like that. I was a student that had a couple of special teachers encourage me to write, because like you, I can’t not write. Thanks.

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Matthew Long's avatar

One of your best essays yet Liza. This is such an important question for writers to ask and I think you have addressed it well. I always enjoy reading your work even if I don't leave a comment. I am not much of a poetry person but I did order your book finally. I look forward to reading it when it arrives.

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Around the Parnassus Campfire's avatar

Very fine. It reminds me of Faulkner's Noble Prize speech.

This is a question I sometimes find myself asking and, to date, I don't have a solid answer. But, theory was never my strong suit.

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Joanna Milne 🏺's avatar

Preservation of culture. Now that is making me reflect on the extent to which that an ingredient for me too.

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Mary Catelli's avatar

I started to write at a time when I was suffering from written word withdrawal for the lack of books, and then I discovered that if I wrote, I could chase the plot bunnies out of my head onto the written page.

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David Foster's avatar

Does the title of 'The Leverkühn Quartet' reflect the protagonist of Thomas Mann's version of Faust?

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Chen Rafaeli's avatar

I strongly remember it being much-harder-to-get-strongly-asssociated-with-New-Years' clementines. мандаринки. If I'd to revive how Novyj God smells- it's fur tree(or pine, depends) needles' smell. Fur tree and clementines. And snow.

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John Osburn's avatar

I write to give future life to a past or present experience. That was my thought easing into your essay. By the end, you validated that beautifully as being at the core of most if not all writing that is meaningful, in whatever genre, at whatever level.

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