Author: ruhlwrite

Sitting on the stoop sipping coffee, Ahmed El Shaer can’t help but marvel at his good fortune. Ahmed’s a visual artist. A visual artist, he’s just moved into a new apartment that has a back yard and enough space for him to paint and create videos. He looks toward the front window, where he can see the unpacked boxes piled up in the living room. His year-old black rescue cat, Tomasa, stares back at him with owl-like amber eyes. Ahmed, who has curly black hair, a soft voice and…

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Julie Schwietert doesn’t look like a superhero. For one thing, she’s not wearing a cape. Julie is the founder of Immigrant Families Together. Short in stature and soft in voice, she’s standing firm in the courtyard of her apartment building,  dressed modestly in a lime-green skirt and a bold floral-patterned blouse that don’t look as though they’ve ever flown through the air. Her hair, no-nonsense straight and long, is pulled back, and her sunglasses are perched solidly atop…

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It began about a month into the quarantine when my 8-year-old Wheaten terrier, Zora, put her paws on the front wall of a house down the block to say hello to the puppy poking her head out the window. Zora The Wonder Dog. While Zora’s tail wagged like a hummingbird’s wings, the puppy got into play pose. I watched in wonder – and shock.Zora’s a dedicated dog despiser. When she spies or smells one of her own kind, she throws a tantrum that involves growling, barking and grabbing the…

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Auburn hair waving in the wind like a kite tail, Marina Costas leads Lucky, her red-sweater-wearing white Maltipoo, into her florist shop. Marina is the owner of Paint by Flowers. Lucky, who she rescued from the streets of Greece 13 years ago, heads toward his bed as Marina brings out an elegant bouquet, an ode to rosy roses, red orchids and creamy carnations. It’s spiked with gold-spray-painted monstera spears to match its shiny brass bowl. It may be more coincidental than calculated,…

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René Georg Vasicek, who declares himself a “writer, garage philosopher and cosmic thinker,” is sitting in a supersize leather chair and sipping cold coffee from a ceramic mug. René’s the author of “The Defectors.” While he’s expounding upon the big reality-shattering ideas that zig and zag through his existential dystopian novel, , like an errant self-driving automobile, he experiences a profound Proustian madeleine moment. It’s the first book he’s had published,…

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