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Linda Rader Overman is so proud of her former student Natalie Grill who was a winner of the Oliver W. Evans Writing Prize in Fall 2023--Well done!!

A Comparative Analysis of Spiegelman’s Maus II and Oster’s The Stable Boy of Auschwitz It has been nearly eighty years since that decis...

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Memory Chronicles - Take 1

My first memory is being held in the arms of my uncle Arturo.  He was actually Mom's first cousin, but the Latin way is to consider cousins such as he - an uncle.
He held me over the baptismal font of Blessed Sacrament Church on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, Ca.
I must have been less than a year.  I looked at the water and thought, please don't drop me. I haven't learned to swim yet.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Friday, August 28, 2015

A philanthropist with a cause - Rosenwald

Rosenwald
foregrounds the life of Julius Rosenwald
I love his quote:
"Don't believe because a man is rich he is necessarily smart. There is ample evidence to the contrary."

Hint Fiction - Take 2 - Art Alone Endures

Art Alone Endures

The Art League had a competition for artists to depict the future. By accident Bogden included a blank canvas among his submissions.  It won.

--william j. brazill

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Linda Rader Overman wonders when Chronic Fatigue will be cured because???

I have suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), now called Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease by the the Institute of Medicine, since 1990.  My daughter is also plagued with it and forced to be on temporary disability.  Believe me she would much rather be at work than confined to her bed for days on end as I have been.
 
So when I read this recent article:


Chronic fatigue breakthrough offers hope for millions


I hoped against hope that this is indeed a breakthrough.  I have read tens and dozens of such articles like :


and to no avail....no cure....and yuppie flu, a senseless label remains.  There have been far too many groundbreaking articles making this claim without any treatment whatsoever existing other than in the homeopathic realm: acupuncture, vitamin infusion, exercise and on ad infinitum yet no bloody cure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sufferers like my daughter and myself are sick to death of being dismissed with pejorative labels and not being given any credibility regarding the debilitating symptoms excused as mental/psychiatric issues.  I heard this same crap twenty-five years ago when there was far less known about it and far less treatment available for it.  And ironically NOTHING has changed.
Try functioning when you are struggling with total exhaustion after minor physical or mental exertion, cognitive impairment worsening upon standing, or a brain fog, sleeplessness, muscle and joint pain, rash, lymph inflammation, which only lying in bed for days or weeks upon end abates just barely.

Laura Hillenbrand author of Unbroken and Seabiscuit struggles with this disease as does Cher as do too many people!!
When will a cure be found....too long considered a type A Woman's Disease....there needs to be a cure.  
Just sayin! Harrumph!!


Monday, June 8, 2015

Linda Rader Overman considers Henry Oster, a hero, as he recalls Buchenwald horrors at 70th anniversary

Henry Oster recalls Buchenwald horror

This amazing man and retired Beverly Hills optometrist spoke at CSUN this spring.  He provided a living history of his experiences at Buchenwald where he was held for approximately several years under the Nazi killing machine.  He survived to tell his tale and honored his family and fellow survivors.  Those from Cologne now dead except for Dr. Oster who will never forget.

He stated: "What I see here, where the barracks used to be, at every barrack there was a pile of dead bodies, this is in your memory forever," Oster said. "When someone asks how Buchenwald was, you immediately see the dead bodies again."

Nazi Concentration Camp Survivors Mark 70th Anniversary Of Buchenwald Liberation

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Linda Rader Overman is very proud of her daughter & Amy Ephron @Vogue

Desperately Seeking the Perfect Summer T-Shirt
Thanks Amy Ephron for highlighting the sales skills of my daughter, DEVA, who loves helping style and make people happy in just the right clothes that fit at Rag & Bone Brentwood!



Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Linda Rader Overman thanks Dr. Henry Oster & Dexter Ford for The Kindness of The Hangman

The Kindness of the Hangman came to visit

On March 6, 2015 Friday at 2:00PM authors Dr. Henry Oster and Dexter Ford
came to CSUN to give a talk about their amazing memoir of Oster's fight for survival during WWII while captive in a concentration camp of horrors of called Buchenwald.

Their recently published book, The Kindness of the Hangman (Higgins Bay Press, 2014), tells Oster's gripping tale of the 2,011 Jews who were rounded up by the Gestapo and deported from Cologne, Germany. Henry is the only one still alive to tell their story.  Dr. Oster and Dexter Ford spoke and signed copies of their book.  It is available for purchase on Amazon and at The Kindness of the Hangman

 Click here to see the recent Los Angeles Times article on Dr. Oster.

Attended by approximately a hundred fascinated listeners, Oster held the audience captive with his wrenching tale. 

He stood for 70 minutes and spoke without any notes.  His tone was conversational, informative, concise, to the point, and tinged with sardonic humor....the CSUN audience was spell bound.  

The Q&A following afforded discussion with Ford regarding the challenge of assembling hundreds of hours of video recorded interviews into a historical, personal, engaging, and photograph filled account of Oster's life. Ford has been a contributing editor to the New York times and affirmed that, although he is a bit younger, he now knows how to write in the voice of a person of Oster's ilk in his mid-eighties.  The challenge of rendering Oster's voice and the tortuous journey within a landscape of brutal survival culminating in rescue, hope, arrival in a new land, creating a new identity, rebuilding lost family ties, and becoming an accomplished Beverly Hills based optometrist was achieved over a writing period of seven years.  One can barely imagine how daunting a project this was for both men. 

The utmost gratitude and appreciation to these two incredible human beings for sharing what Ford describes as a "gripping, never-before-written account of one lost German boy, totally alone, clawing to survive in the tidal wave of Nazi genocide." 
We were all humbled, informed, edified, privileged, and awed by this experience. 


On April 11-12, 2015 Henry Oster will be a guest of the German government at the memorial commemorating the liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp
70th Anniversary of Liberation Commemoration







Linda Rader Overman achieves her PhD from ‘merry ole England'

Connect Spring 2015 read page 12-13
Thank you to University of Cumbria magazine Connect for publishing my tale of a journey through the academic equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest!!

Linda Rader Overman is grateful to be a member of Algonquin West

Grateful to be a member of Algonquin West
Thank you to my writing workshop members and our fearless leader the brilliant
Eve Caram, who guides our pens with insight, poeticism, and patience, patience, patience.
Couldn't do it without you all.
Thank you to our illustrious member Cecilia Manguerra Brainard for publicizing our uniqueness on her blog, Travels (and more) WITH Cecilia Brainard!