Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
It was two and a half years ago that I made my first ever Words Like Trees post, written here in Billings at Christmastime. A three hour drive to Bergen, followed by eighteen hours of airport-hopping, and we reached Billings this time in its brilliant summer heat. Because of the pandemic, we haven't come here... Continue Reading →
Last weekend, my husband and I took a short hike up the first slope of the mountain next to campus, to where a lookout point shows campus like a toy village, to where the valley as a whole structure becomes visible, and the lip of distant mountains, not visible from the valley floor, peaks over... Continue Reading →
The last part of this week, I have been participating in a virtual teacher training workshop about conceptual learning and inquiry. Nine teachers and the workshop leader have been gathering on Zoom for in-depth discussions of how to reframe learning to promote a deeper conceptual understanding (rather than memorized content) that better enables students to... Continue Reading →
In my first few years of teaching English, when people asked why I had chosen this career, I liked to say that I had chosen it because they paid me to talk about love. This was horribly simplified, delightfully whimsical, and ultimately self-indulgent, I can see now, but it is not entirely untrue. The language... Continue Reading →
Can a non-writer learn the tools of the trade, or are great writers born with something different? Is writing a gift--the kind of thing you either have or lack--or is writing a learned skill that any person can develop? Questions of this ilk have sometimes plagued me, as an aspiring writer first, later as a... Continue Reading →
Shortly after I finished writing, the internet returned. Our isolation was short-lived, and of course, for its very brevity, cherished. Candle reflections this morning.
This post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Check out other Hop participants' posts to learn about more aspects of writing craft and business, the third Wednesday of each month except for November and December. If we are writers who care about social justice, we have to interrogate our work. How do... Continue Reading →
My husband and I took the money we would have spent on a trip back to the US this summer and bought a Raku kiln for our ongoing ceramics adventure. After more than a month's wait, the kit arrived finally in late July, and my husband spent a whole day (until about 11:00pm) working through... Continue Reading →
I woke Saturday morning to the news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. Oh no. Oh, oh no. Not now. I closed Facebook and that flood of posts. I opened it again. Channel grief into action, I read. I looked away. I have these elder heroes, people of those earlier generations whom I've imagined... Continue Reading →
Work went from zero to one hundred more abruptly that it ever has. Two weeks ago, that last easy week of summer, I wrote an hour each day, completed consistent thirty-minute workouts, weekly video-calls with family and friends, eight hours of sleep each night. Two weeks, and I feel already wrung dry. Although they're all... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 