“I think I’ve written this scene before, but I’ll write it once again.” – So begins Robert Walser in his short story The Boat, before depicting a magical scene of two impassioned lovers. This story of love is lovingly read by Roberta Allen.
As a woman sleeps in a jungle hut next to her lover, her mind meets myriad of the jungle’s creatures – ants, beetles, maggots, peccaries – and she becomes one of them… Hear Roberta Allen read a pivotal chapter from her novel The Dreaming Girl.
In “The Maid,” the great Swiss writer Robert Walser encapsulates an entire epic in a few short paragraphs. A master of concision, irony and playfulness, Walser would seem a natural fit for Roberta Allen, who reads one of her favorite of his stories.
Do places have a reality in and of themselves, or are they always what we imagine them to be? In “Africa,” a story from the The Daughter, a novella in short stories, Roberta Allen creates her own Africa amidst the wildness and wreckage of vacant city lots.
Check out the press release for the video essay on New York author, visual artist and teacher Roberta Allen.
“Layers and Lines” reveals Roberta Allen’s life in her own words. This video essay follows Allen’s evolution from fear-ridden child to brave writer, visual artist and teacher. Her novel The Dreaming Girl is available from Ellipsis Press.
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