Articles by Elisavietta Ritchie

Article - Features; by Elisavietta Ritchie - 12/22/11

Christmas Memories

Finding — and giving — refuge from the storm

The deaf cat, a skinny princess getting on, could not hear her own purrs, nor our learned conversations above her head, at a festive gathering in a lovely house on St. Leonard’s Creek beyond Jefferson Patterson Park. Though I demurred, our hosts, Stovy and Anne Brown, pushed the cat (code named Lady Godiva) off her chair so I could sit down. This untoward act of displacement required my offer of lap and a good caressing. For an hour I warmed her elderly feline bones,...

Article - Books; by Elisavietta Ritchie - 9/22/11

Life's Stories

In two new local novels, truth wears the thin disguise of fiction

Captivity, corruption, escapes, flights in truth and fantasy, murder, messages from the dead, revenge, suicide … The stuff of thriller fiction. But in the lives of authors Donald Shomette, Helena Mann-Melnitchenko and Eugene Melnitchenko, such events were terribly real. Wars, internments and such tragedies can be buried in memory, but they’re not forgotten. Writing puts a frame around memories, rendering them more manageable. These authors...

Article - Correspondence; by Elisavietta Ritchie - 10/28/10

Windmills Are Great, But …

Dear Bay Weekly: This debate on the windmills [Pulling Pennies from the Air and The TALL Price of Power, Sept. 30; Correspondence, October 14; Letter from the Editor, October 21] is interesting indeed. A young acquaintance who was going into the business offered to install one at the edge of our wetlands. While spiritually and practically we were all for it, we remembered the constant noise we have heard passing fields of windmills, and we knew we would go nuts with one in our back yard...