I have this thing I do when deciding about a book. Do you do this too? Whether standing in the bookstore or the library stacks, at a rotating book rack in the airport or, even, in front of a bookshelf in the home of a friend: I open the book at random and I read. […]
Read moreWe sat down together in November, my delightful editor and I. Truly, Elizabeth is delightful. Soft-spoken, encouraging, joyful, savvy, and a real Powerhouse of a Person. Elizabeth Gets Things Done. So I sat down with her because I needed a little help with the whole social media aspect of this book publishing thing. My edits […]
Read moreThe work is not the vision itself, certainly. It is not the vision filled in, as if it had been a coloring book. It is not the vision reproduced in time; that were impossible. It is rather a simulacrum and a replacement. It is a golem. –Annie Dillard, The Writing Life On July 29, 1981, […]
Read moreThis blog post is a gift to my mother, whose birthday was April 21st. And in loving memory of my grandmother, Grace Everett, whose birthday was the 27th. The field guides were kept in the dining room. Not obtrusively on the kitchen table or counter, but just around the corner, accessible to a quick eye […]
Read moreWe are gearing up for a big transition at our house: In less than forty-eight hours, Will will be on his way to Madagascar, and we will be navigating life as a family of five– minus one.This means that there’s lots to do these days, and there’s lots to think about. Around the errands and […]
Read moreA well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?”“Well,” the writer said, “I don’t know…. Do you like sentences?”The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am twenty years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, […]
Read moreGiovanni GiacomettiChristmas Now burn, new born to the world,Double-natured name,The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled,Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fire hard-hurled.-Gerard Manley Hopkins, excerpt from “The Wreck of […]
Read moreEvery year it comes to this, I would imagine–though I can’t say I remember it, surprised as I am every time: the air cleared of humidity so you could see for miles if the way lay straight; the leaves in that state of going, that thinned-outness–falling or still clinging–that makes every breeze into its own […]
Read morehttp://cdn.tss.uproxx.com/TSS/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/the-great-gatsby-2012.jpg I love going to the movies. Despite all that Netflix and Amazon have to offer, there is something so simply great about going to the cinema and sitting there in the dark, releasing yourself to the larger-than-life narrative unfolding on the screen. I love it. One of the best classes I took in college […]
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