A Weird Unfathomable Ordinary Everyday Life

Authors: William Bridges and Dianne Jenkins

ISBN 978-1-60264-480-9 (softcover)

134 pages

"A Weird Unfathomable Ordinary Everyday Life" is the lively and colorful record of a three-year correspondence between Bill Bridges, a professional writer and poet, and Dianne Jenkins, a mail- and rubber-stamp artist. Bill and Dianne live in Indiana and Massachusetts, respectively. They are correspondents in an almost 19th century sense although they know about (and even use) computers and the telephone, this book was produced without a single e-mail or phone call. The result is illustrated with more than 100 pieces of Dianne's art (and a few of Bill's, who had to try his hand occasionally). The letters touch on art, travel, museums, writing, "collecting," Zen meditation, and cooking, among other subjects. As Bill has noted, "We did this for our own delight but if anyone else wants to come in, they"re welcome."

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

William Bridges has had a career divided between active journalism, teaching, and writing/editing. He has been a foreign correspondent in Germany and a newspaper editor in the United States and Taiwan. His six books have included memoirs, travel, essays, fiction, and a 30-year collection of poetry, "The Landscape Deeper In," all but one published by VBW. He retired in 2003 from teaching and directing a journalism school, and is now a project editor for a large publisher of computer manuals. He and his wife, Karen, live in Franklin, Indiana.

When Dianne Jenkins was little, she wanted to be either an artist or a cowgirl. Due to a shortage of horses, she became an artist. She finds materials at thrift stores, yard sales, and on the street. With old clothes, string, yarn, buttons, keys, and hardware, she constructs dolls, from tiny to lifesize. She carves rubber stamps and uses them along with photographs, old postage stamps, and every kind of ink and paint to make booklets, journals, and letters. Her life is crammed with ideas, good food, wonderful people, and animals. She and her family live near the ocean in Swampscott, Massachusetts.