At the end of this post, I’m going to take you to the beach. It’s a beautiful beach, too… …and I, for one, will be glad to get there. We all need something to look forward to. So there’s my promise: Beach trip. Very soon. In order to get there, though, first I need to tell …
What—another rough news week? (Gosh, I am shocked, shocked.) So it turns out we’ve got twelve years to get serious about climate change. In other words: My little boy just started pre-K, and by the time he reaches tenth grade, we need some serious environmental come-to-Jesus. Everybody registered to vote? ℘℘℘ On the subject of listening …
Continued from last week: A series of posts called Center. I’m writing this for you if «•» the news makes you feel like your sleeves are on fire «•» your life circumstances yank you in 72 directions «•» you are dispersed, distracted and distressed. «•» I’m there, too.These meditations have emerged from about a year of seeking a return to center, the …
For you who are feeling distracted, drained off, distressed, dispersed. Tough news day, yes? (I’m writing this on Sept. 28, 2018—the day after the Senate testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh—but it feels like that could describe a lot of news days.) Tough news day. In which I found myself thinking, again: What can I …
These are the last days of summer, whatever the schoolbuses, candle stores, and Pumpkin Ales may tell you. Don’t be rushed by the makers of seasonal markers: This is the liminal space of crickets and figs ripening. The ripening, too, of summer musings into autumn doings. Interesting things happen in middle-times. Liminal spaces are an …
Excerpts from my review of Alice Mattison’s new novel Conscience, just published in Consequence Magazine. Consider: A man sets his baby on the sidewalk, walks a short distance away, and sets himself on fire. Does the fact that he’s brought his child to his self-immolation prove he is out of his mind? Or is he …
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 …