I’m waiting for the muse with a capital M. Not the one that sends me to the garden to pick beans for canning. Or the one makes me jump on the trampoline at night and watch the moon. But the one that has me scrambling for a pen and scribbling on whatever scrap of paper […]
Today I’ve been thinking about writer’s menopause. Do I have just so many stories in me like I had so many eggs? Does writing so much about other people’s lives keep me from fully living my own? I think all this writing could be an exercise to guard against Alzheimer’s and other kinds of memory […]
~ Poetry is the language of our time. It is a verbal excavation, digging us into and under that which is in inarticulate, that which cannot be said but can be felt, that which cannot be stated but can be conjured. Poetry is a form of revolution. It rearranges our thinking, our perception out dialogue. […]
As jarring as it can be for the subject of one of my profile stories to see their life printed out on a billboard, it’s just as jarring for me to see my name attached to it. Writing stories about other people’s lives is a privilege but can also be a daunting undertaking that comes […]
“I have up and joined the Peace Corps,” begins the latest issue of Floyd County Moonshine. In his editor’s preface Aaron Moore explains how joining the Peace Corp seemed like a nice thing to do. He goes on to say, “Today I started quite possibly the first Hacky-sack English Speaking club in China. In due […]
Last week I spoke to Amanda Biviano’s senior English Composition class about being a local writer. It was a college freshman class and the students were learning to do interviews and write profile stories (the main type of writing that I currently do). They were also interested in blogs and had been reading mine in […]
I write like I play Scrabble: A feature story is only as good as the interview that precedes it, like a game is only as good as the letters you draw. But you have to make the best of what you have whether you’re playing Scrabble or writing a story. I write like I play […]
Writing is elemental. Once you have tasted its essential life, you cannot turn from it without some deep denial and depression. It would be like turning down water. Water is in your blood. You can’t go without it. ~ Natalie Goldberg When a dark thought or a growing insecurity wakes me in the middle […]
New Year’s Day 2010: I like a simple life, when a lunch made from scratch and a walk to the mailbox are the highlights of the day. When I’m free to drop what I’m doing to photograph swirling shapes of steam coming off a freshly poured cup of tea illuminated by afternoon sun. I like […]
I drove way out into what seemed like no man’s land, to Camp Powhatan in Hiwassee Virginia, on Saturday. I went there to do a story on Camp Treehouse, a day camp hosted by hospice for kids who have recently had a death in their family. I wasn’t there for five minutes when a woman […]
That question came to mind as I realize that I’ve been in a bathing suit exactly one time so far this summer. As I ponder the weeds and bugs in my garden and feel shocked that my dying pumpkin plants have revealed big orange pumpkins so early in August. As I ignore cleaning the kitchen […]
I write because it’s the way I synthesize what I’m learning at the time. I write because I hate to lose things and writing them down is a way not to lose them. I write because on a good day, my pen is like a dousing stick that finds a well of meaning I can […]
