If I’ve been posting seldomly, it’s because I’ve been living muchly. Expect some posts soon with juicy details on the following: Lady tattooers and bizarre coincidences. I’ve been overhauling my novel again. It’s about a young woman aspiring to become a tattoo artist in the mid-1980s, when there were few women in the field. Recently …
My essay “How to Survive the Apocalypse” is out today in the print issue of Image Journal. It’s a fun/serious look at apocalyptic fiction. (Literary fiction. Not the Left Behind series.) Specifically: the excellent novels The Pinch by Steve Stern (Graywolf Press) This Is Why I Came by Mary Rakow (Counterpoint Press), and When the English Fall by David Williams (Algonquin Books). And from …
Poetry for the End of Seasons Hunger for Salt, Elaine Fletcher Chapman Autumn-summer cusp—a breath—a good moment to read “September Begins,” from Elaine Fletcher Chapman’s debut collection, Hunger for Salt. “[O]ne psalm, picked randomly / this morning, one hundred and thirty one: / O, lord, my heart is not lifted up… / I have calmed and quieted my …
Further thoughts on the territory of hunger and ache. (For part 1, see “Empty Space”: the sometimes-painful act of letting go, and being willing to sit with our hungers.) I didn’t plan to write any more on the subject, but then there was a confluence of events: A podcast. A performance. So I guess I’ll be doing a little …
Further thoughts on the territory of hunger and ache. (For part 1, see “Empty Space”: the sometimes-painful act of letting go, and being willing to sit with our hungers.) I didn’t plan to write any more on the subject, but then there was a confluence of events: A podcast. A performance. A pastoral pondering. So I guess …
Rob and I (aka The Scrivening Bartlebys) loved making a joyful ruckus at House of Brews last weekend. Thanks if you were one of the beloved friends who came! But the best moment might’ve been when this guy crept up on stage… (Can you spot him on the right?)
Sine proprio. It means “without grasping.” It’s Latin, a phrase used in the vows taken by Franciscan friars—or that’s what I learned from my friar friend, anyway. Specifically, sine proprio is the phrase used for the vow of Poverty. I would’ve thought they’d use a phrase like “without money” for a vow of poverty. But the point …
Opening up my mailbox to find indie (literary) books I might never otherwise discover is one of the pleasures of reviewing for IMAGE Journal. Each month I get to read and ponder a new one for their digest of delights, ImageUpdate, and recently it was Animal Heart, a collection of short stories by Paul Luikart. Luikart has worked …