Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
Before departing school for the summer, I stopped by the book storage room. A small and musty room of bookshelves adjoining one of the English classrooms, far too many books for the space, piled three deep on the shelves so that you have to shift great tottering piles in order to see what is stacked... Continue Reading →
Some stories seem to move more slowly than drying paint. They elongate scene after scene of a bland character sitting, contemplating, staring at walls. Whole novels can go by without the character doing much more than taking a sip of their watered-down beer as they contemplate the vagaries of their universes. How often do I... Continue Reading →
Over the last year, I have been reading parts of Patience Gray's Honey from a Weed: Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia. Gray traces the food traditions of rural people along Europe's Mediterranean coast, interspersed with stories of the people she met and learned from while she was living in each... Continue Reading →
This last week I participated in an online short story course. One Story's Write a Short Story with Hannah Tinti was an engaging, entertaining, but most of all practically useful one-week course, though which we explored a basic structure for short story writing. This was the first class I've done with One Story, and I... Continue Reading →
In the five years I've lived now here on the west coast of Norway, my inner relationship to this place has changed and grown. When I came, it was a feeling of complete awe that flooded me, as if this were a fairytale place. The natural beauty proclaims itself here. Dramatic shapes of the land,... Continue Reading →
On Friday, we said goodbyes to our graduating second-year students. In this international community, where these young people gather for two years in a crucible of five-students-to-a-room mayhem, of intense exams capping a rigorous curriculum, of a plethora of student-organized events, of all the pangs of teenage life, the parting is hard. They have come... Continue Reading →
As I continue to explore different venues for submitting short stories, one publication different than the others has been Sixfold. Traditional literary journals have a team of readers and editors who vet submissions and curate the publication. Sixfold, instead, has the writers who have submitted stories or poems read, comment, and vote on one another's... Continue Reading →
We have had a brilliant week of weather, with sunny days and clear nights, temperatures just approaching where you can be out in the day without a jacket. We hear it will grow cold again next week, so we've been trying to be outside when we can. Evening at low tide. My motivation for writing... Continue Reading →
I'm only up for a short post today. I've had a lot of evening events during the last week. I'm behind on grading papers. I'm squeezing out some time to keep up with my writing, but only a bit. We're trying to figure out summer plans. Things keep rushing on and keeping up's a challenge.... Continue Reading →
Many times I have heard writers talk about a character seeming to lift up off the page, feel real enough that they start telling their own story. Writers say, "The story writes itself. The character told me what they'd do." If I'm honest, most times when I hear these things I roll my eyes. I... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 