Susan M. Tiberghien

Last July, returning from the International Women's Writing Guild Summer Conference at Yale, I started a conversation with an English woman at the airport. I was traveling with my husband (French) and this gave rise to a short opinion piece, published in the International Herald Tribune. I received an unusual amount of emails and comments. So I have decided to print it here, "Airport Chatter", and to post regularly, maybe once a month, similar stories that have been published and that address what happens when you marry a Frenchman!

The story is below, but first, other news from Geneva takes me to the 8th Geneva Writers' Conference, just around the corner, February 3-5, at Webster University. Registrations are still open. The line-up of instructors, agents and editors is terrific. Check the program, www.genevawritersgroup.org, and come join us! The registration form is also posted on our website.

I have updated my workshop schedule for the spring, to include the ones in the States. Dates are given on this homepage, to the left. I'll be in the States April 19 to May 7. And then again in June, for the next IWWG Conference at Yale, June 22 to 29.

Hoping to see many of you, either here in Geneva or in the States.

And now here is

AIRPORT CHATTER

"May we sit here?"I asked the woman reading alone at the table.
She nodded in consent and continued to read.
It was one of the high, round tables in the middle of the main concourse at J.F.K. International Airport. My husband and I were on our way home to Geneva after 10 days in the States.We pulled over two chairs from other tables, and I lifted myself up to the level of my neighbor while Pierre went to get us coffee. I tried to read the title of her book. She was ostensibly not available for conversation.
I reached in my bag for a couple of chocolate chip cookies that friends had given us for the ride to the city. I looked at my neighbor. I am a writer, I was happy she was reading. We could talk.
“Would you like a cookie?”
“No thank you.”
So that’s that. But yet there was a British accent. I would try again.
“Are you returning home?” She might have been living in New York City for that matter. But along with wanting to share my chocolate chip cookies, I also wanted to be friendly.
Pierre, even after fifty some years of marriage, would still try to disappear whenever I started to talk to strangers. And when my parents used to visit us in Europe, there were three of us talking to strangers.
My neighbor looked up at me. “Yes, home to London. And you?”
“The same. Home to Switzerland.”
She put her finger in her book and asked where. Often living in Switzerland opens doors to conversation.
Yes, she had been to Geneva. Yes I had been to London. And more importantly, we quickly discovered a mutual love of NYC. She returns each year, to visit and catch up with dance and theater, having worked some twenty odd years at the American Ballet Theater. I return each year to teach and catch up with family and friends, having grown up just outside the city.
It so happened that I have a daughter and son-in-law living in Brooklyn and both involved in theater. And it so happened that she knew some of their work. The Molière at Julliard. The play on Broadway with Frank Lagella. The names of Off-Broadway theaters skipped over the table top, Rattlestick, Cherry Lane, the Roundabout.
Pierre came back carrying our coffee. He looked at the open bag of cookies.
“Alors, you are sharing our cookies?” He purposely spoke in French, wanting to keep a distance at our little table.
“No, we’re just talking. Talking about theater.”
My neighbor turned back to her book. Pierre ate a cookie. I burnt my tongue on the coffee.
“She too is returning home, but to London,” I said, still trying.
Pierre pursed his lips. Not only was I talking to a stranger, but the stranger was possibly a Brit, and the Channel still effectively separates the two countries.
It was now my neighbor’s turn. She closed her book, looked at my husband’s tennis racquet still hung over his shoulder, and asked if he knew who had won at Wimbleton.
My husband gave in and rallied. There followed a feisty discussion between England and France about the top tennis players, about Roland Garros, Wimbleton, and who would win at the US Open. There was warm agreement that Federer—oh, happy Switzerland—was the best, the gentleman of all tennis.
Our neighbor had to leave us, her plane was earlier than ours.
“It’s been a real pleasure,” she said. “It’s the first time I ever had an interesting conversation in an airport.”
Even Pierre smiled.

To close this homepage, I will give an excerpt from my most recent book, On Year to a Writing Life, that offers twelve workshops moving from journaling to essays to short stories and flash fiction, on to dream writing, folk talkes, dialogue, prose poems, and ending with memoir and writing the way home. The book is in its 5th printing and remains a best seller on Amazon for books about writing.

"Ask writers to define the writing life and you will get many answers. Annie Dillard says that it is "life at its most free." For Stephen King, it's a "brighter, more pleasant place." From Brenda Ueland to John Gardner, writers have been offering counsel to encourage people to write. And all the words come back to one fundamental truth: a writing life is a creative life....

For me it has become a life that awakens to birdsong in early morning, that lingers with sunlight in late afternoon. It is a life that slows down to touch each moment, a life that deepens from an inner source. I was fifty years old when I started along the way. I had been writing letters, various papers, journal entries, but not thinking of myself as a writer. My life was full yet I longed for something more. Once I acknowledged that I wanted to be a writer, the well within me filled with fresh creativity...

One Year to a Writing Life presents twelve workshops drawn from over fifteen years of teaching. The lessons dovetail inspiration and instruction. The first component, inspiration, comes from my trust in writing as a way of life. A trust nourished by practice.... The second component, instruction, comes from my appreciation of writing as a process. We sharpen our writing skills, clarify our thinking, and deepen our awareness of ourselves and of the world around us...

There is a light within each of us, the light that we bring into the world. ONE YEAR TO A WRITING LIFE will lead you to this light. With your words, you become a light bearer in the world."