This is an updated reprint of a Thanksgiving post from a few years back. The theme is gratitude, and that never gets old. Do you remember that scene in Out of Africa when Meryl Streep, playing Karen Blixin (later known by her nom de plume Isak Dinesen) was hosting Robert Redford and Michael Kitchen on … Continue reading Making Up Stories: my spiritual practice
Written with my Thursday night group with the prompts: he had given up speaking to anyone but Molly, confidant and clown, double orange doors, Blue Planet, need a plan, must have a goal, always cleaned up behind himself, pillow confessions Tim had given up speaking to anyone but Molly a long time ago. Thanks to … Continue reading Fade to Blue
I hardly need to say this because we all know it, but hey, it’s been a weird couple of years. This November I am grateful for family members and friends who have accompanied me on this journey. But I also want to say I am so grateful for Writing, the actual activity, the practice of writing. Writing has … Continue reading November Musing
Anderson Cooper came by my house to repair the busted slats on my back fence and to tell me I use too many ellipses in my writing. I told him I use ellipses because I like them!— but I told him not in a “I’ll do what I want” kind of way. I told … Continue reading Dot Dot Dot
I wrote this a month ago with my Thursday night writing group, and I didn’t use too many of the prompts, though I did use these: out to lunch, for whose eyes do I write today, shedding inhibitions, “A writer is not one who answers questions but who asks them.” What I miss most is going … Continue reading What I Miss Most
We’ve all been “sheltering” now, to one degree or another, for seven and a half months. Initially I was both alarmed and secretly pleased—because suddenly I could be my introvert self without apology. My biggest fear was that the whole thing would end too soon—before I completed the half-finished novel I’d been sitting on for the past … Continue reading Sheltering, Part 4
Written with my Thursday night writing group (now meeting on Zoom!) with the prompts: one red shoe and oh, dear. Madelaine wore one red shoe and one green shoe because it was Christmas and she was in a wild holiday mood. She wondered, do cats see color?—because it was only the cats who would see … Continue reading How Madelaine Survives Quarantine
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was dipping into Sleeping on the Wing by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell, an anthology of poetry and writing prompts written for children and teens. In a chapter on D.H. Lawrence, the authors note that Lawrence called his poems “acts of attention.” They prompt readers to give … Continue reading The Story of My Hydrangea Bush
In the beginning of The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, I found the book a bit off-putting. The author drops the reader into the middle of a scene with no hand holds or explanations. Our protagonist is Lila Mae Watson, an elevator inspector in an unnamed city with lots of big buildings. But Whitehead doesn’t introduce us to … Continue reading Book Review: The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
About three quarters of the way through Tommy Orange’s There There, on the day of the culminating Big Oakland Pow Wow, it occurred to me that this plot structure was a bit like some potboilers I read way back in the 60s when I wanted to read grown-up books, so I borrowed a few of … Continue reading Book Review: There There by Tommy Orange
