Events and Appearances by Diane Ackerman

2020

APRIL

--22-23. Ennystimon, County Clare, Ireland. John O'Donohue Symposium. Public talks and conversations. I feel honored to receive the first John O'Donohue Poetics of Possibility Award.

AUGUST

--28-30. "For Love of the World: a virtual weekend workshop." 7PM, Fri, Sat, Sun.

Over the course of the weekend, in three 90 minute online sessions, Diane will talk about her life as a professional writer, her process, rituals, goals, trials and joys. Then, in the shadow of the current pandemic, she will go deeper into the craft itself to look at memoir writing in particular, asking how one can write movingly and convincingly about personal versus historical trauma, one’s own suffering or that of a loved one, against a backdrop of the struggles and triumphs inherent in being human. And in the last session, she will answer your questions about books, the creative life, and the human saga. And writers will be invited to share a specific craft problem they’re wrestling with in their own work.

DIANE ON THE SELF

“Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.”
DIANE ON LIFE

"The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible,to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day....It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between."
DIANE ON NATURE

"There is a way of beholding nature which is a form of prayer, a way of minding something with such clarity and aliveness that the rest of the world recedes."
DIANE ON WONDER

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”

DIANE ACKERMAN

EVENTS

DIANE ON THE SELF

“Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.”

DIANE ON LIFE

DIANE ON NATURE

"There is a way of beholding nature which is a form of prayer, a way of minding something with such clarity and aliveness that the rest of the world recedes."

DIANE ON WONDER

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”