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WendySterndale.com
 View over my back deck, April 2011.

About My ...

About My Writing

_In novels and short stories, I start with a kernel of truth from what I see. If I stick to the truth, it’ll be an essay. If I twist the truth, elaborate on it, exaggerate and recombine parts from different things I've seen to find out what my characters will do, it'll be fiction.

Characters in the contemporary novel I am currently working on are creating new lives in response to their middle class world that is going through an economic and political downturn. One of my characters finds himself far from his sense of humanity. He becomes so delusional that he gets lost in his own mistaken points of view. We get to watch him get laid off, get drunk, go bonkers and then he moves to a clothing-optional hot-tub retreat center, and finally gets vulnerable and more balanced. Another character goes through a week of profound loss when she discovers her friend is having an affair with her husband. She expresses her temper and throws some things through the wall that hit someone on the head. She gets laid off in the same week. Some of the characters generate new lives in ways that remind us of kindness and dignity. Some of it is true, but I won’t tell you which parts. It didn’t happen exactly that way, so I’m calling it fiction.
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About My Cell Phone Photography

_I take photos to be delighted by another point of view. The content of a snapshot comes from what I point the camera at, and what happens during the camera’s delay after I press the button and when it snaps the shot. Also, this camera has a unique way of capturing light that can be a delight.

On a recent day, while waiting for a traffic signal, I photographed a lavender hedge in the meridian beside me. The shutter snapped just as a car in the opposing lane entered the picture. The camera caught an angle of glare on their windshield and on my passenger window that resulted in a picture of lavender in a subtle frame. In another image on a different day, the camera picked up light shafts on a river as the light appeared to stretch from the water toward the sun. Those beautiful light rays were only visible through the camera lens.
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