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Dinah Lenney & The Things in Her Life

Posted on Aug 8, 2014 by in Upcoming Salons |

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Every time I read her work, I fall a little more in love with Dinah. I admire the way she seems to paint an essay softly with a set of brushes ranging from fine to broad sable. Then every time I meet her in person, I fall a little more in love again for other reasons like how she’s genuine and true as a human being–just like her writing.

UnknownI first met Dinah when she was on my LA Times Book Festival panel ready to talk about her memoir, Bigger Than Life: A Murder and Memoir. A brilliant story of Dinah’s self-reckoning when her father, a character bigger than life, is murdered by teenagers in a botched abduction and robbery. Her new book of essays, The Object Parade is no less brilliant and a look inside the things, and sometimes not things, that make up her life, her memories, who she is. From her Steinway piano, to the kiss she must give her friend’s husband because they are playing Gertrude and Claudius on stage, she peals back layers within layers, making you laugh, and cry, and want to hug the hardcover book because she’s now your best friend, or you hope she will be soon.

Please join me in hanging out with Dinah in my living room. Email me now, as this will book quickly: amyliz@amywallen.com

Date: Saturday, September 13 Time: 11am – 4pm

Where: Ivy Street Salon in the historic South Park neighborhood (directions provided upon registration)

Why: Because who doesn’t love to talk to authors while we eat pie. Lunch will be a savory pie and dessert and some wine, if you so desire.

Cost: $150 for a luxurious day. It’s like Spa Day for writers and readers.

Click on Dinah’s website link to see all that she does beside writing. She’s writer, actor, mother, teacher, friend and beyond. dinahlenney.com

Here are only a few of the incredible things that have been said about Dinah’s books:

The Object Parade: Essays

“Dinah Lenney’s marvel of a book is both unflinching and confiding. Her subjects are, ostensibly, the familiar objects of daily life. But no matter what this writer sets her sights on–a scarf, a coffee scoop, a pair of shoes–its sure to yield unexpected meanings, intricate histories, and memorable stories. The objects in this parade quickly transcend their personal significance to the writer and stir the reader with a sharpened sense of life’s pleasures and risks. Lenney knows that everything we touch has the power to change us.” —Bernard Cooper

“A pensive perusal of the objects that can define and shape a life… the collection’s pieces build on each other, layer upon vivid layer of Lenney’s personal history, her heart firmly invested in hearth and home…One of the book’s most moving entries also happens to be its shortest: a strikingly gorgeous, two-page homage to Lenney’s daughter, portrayed as a young girl bouncing in the sun trailing a kite flush with bright streamers. An eclectic treasury of the cherished and the evocative.” —Kirkus Reviews

Bigger Than Life: A Murder and a Memoir

“A brilliant contribution to autobiographical, literary non-fiction; the author takes us right into her con¬sciousness, and recreates thought and feelings with passion and restraint. This book is a model of engaged and engaging memoir-writing.”—Phillip Lopate