Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
Since my last post two weeks ago, we finished term, we packed, we journeyed down to Bergen and over the ocean, eight time zones across to Billings, Montana, visiting my husband's parents. Travel went smoothly, but after a few days here, I began running a fever. I tested positive for Covid-19. For the last few... Continue Reading →
With the end of term on Wednesday of this week, I have been busy with grading assignments and writing reports. I still have quite a lot to do. I'll keep it a short post today. I'll just share a bit of the winter that has now arrived. I grew up in Minnesota, where there is... Continue Reading →
Two weeks ago, I missed making a post. I was hurrying that weekend to revise the essay I had written in the nature writing workshop I took part in last summer. I was reworking scenes and consulting academic articles on the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. I was reading aloud in a whisper to... Continue Reading →
Today (and I am writing this on Saturday), shortly after I complete this post, I'm heading off for a very quick trip to Oslo. We're going to see Verdi's opera Un ballo in maschera. It's a tale of murder and splendor, intrigue and drama. I've never seen an opera before. I am ready for a... Continue Reading →
I'm writing this short post on Thursday night. When it comes Sunday, I'll be away with students skiing. Down here near the fjord, winter cannot hold. It snows and rains, hail and slush and sleet. We will retreat into the mountains where it's cold and clear, the snow so deep, if memories of the last... 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 →
A quicker post today. I am the teacher on duty this weekend, and yesterday medical situations kept me down on campus a couple of hours past the norm. I'm also running the last day of a project-week of bread baking with students. Monday I begin oral exams for my English language learner students. It will... Continue Reading →
When the tide recedes, great shards of frozen fjord shatter against the shore. The ocean leaves them there as it pulls back from the land, and they pile up in a jagged ruin that stretches all around the bay at Flekkefjord. When the sun is blazing and the tide is moving at its fastest, you... Continue Reading →
A paradox of fiction writing (and perhaps too of reading) is the power of the storytelling to make us more aware of our real worlds. As the painter studies a subject and seeks to understand each detail of light, color, and shape, so we, when we write, are looking into things' hearts and seeking the... Continue Reading →
This week's post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop, in which some thoughtful, engaged writers post ideas relevant to the writing community. Check out other great posts here! The snow came to Norway indecisive. It came in the morning and turned rain by afternoon. It snowed all night then melted into slush.... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 