Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
In this busy autumn term at school, I've been taking time to write when I can. I have a daily goal of devoting 85 minutes to my writing each day (and I include in that time blogging here on Words Like Trees, sending out story submissions, meeting with my writing group, as well as my... Continue Reading →
I can't stop taking scenery pictures. When a vista opens up before me, when the sky clears out crystal-blue, when birch trees turning yellow catch the light, I my phone emerges from my pocket. I say to myself, remember this moment, and I snap a picture. Hundreds of these landscapes appear on my phone. I... Continue Reading →
The school year began with two weeks of rain. We bustled to class under umbrellas, hiked through spattering mist, scraped mud from our boots and ran the shoe-drier nonstop. "Summer's over," we said. The moment we returned to Norway, fall began. But somehow the last week of August, the sky cleared. The mist that always... 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 →
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 →
The term ended in a flurry of hard work, and winter break has now opened up before us. Instead of going home this year, we have traveled to Spain, first to Madrid to visit friends of my husband's, then on to the Canary Islands off the southern coast of Morocco. In this post I will... Continue Reading →
Typically the snow here doesn't stay. It falls, it melts, maybe in January and February we will have a few weeks of solid snow. This year, it's come early. In the first days of December, we had our first dusting, followed in the night with enough snow to cover up the grass, to make it... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 