Perle Besserman

Losing My Self in Myriad Things

Perle Besserman

The 13th-century Zen master Dogen wrote:

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace  Read More 

Fact or Fiction—or Both?

Perle Besserman

I’m a writer who has never held back from mixing fiction and life experience. Remarkably, this only got me into trouble once, when a cousin was offended by my description of her father as lame, in a story about our family. She wouldn’t talk to  Read More 

Thoughts on Writing from an Island in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean

Perle Besserman

I was born in Brooklyn but am currently living on the island of Oahu, part of a group of nine Hawaiian islands located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, furthest away from any landmass on earth. Some days  Read More 

WHY I WON’T GROW UP: WRITING AS PLAY

Perle Besserman


Question: What did William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, and Karl Marx have in common?
Answer: They all regarded “play” as the most exalted of human activities.

Two of these men were among the greatest poets England and Germany ever produced, and one was perhaps  Read More