Blog
And Then It Happened: A Story Prompt
You know how it goes. You’re going through an ordinary day—maybe it’s a Sunday, and you’re just taking it easy—and then just like that something happens to change everything. Maybe a visitor arrives, or a phone call comes, or someone says something they’ve been repressing, or they do something they never thought they’d do. The…
Read MoreIt Takes So Little
After I graduated from high school, I enrolled in the local community college. The girl I was dating at the time had an older sister who’d also gone there, and she gave me some of the textbooks she’d used. I remember a psychology text and a literature anthology. The latter was still in use at…
Read MoreForgiveness
My memories of childhood Easters are mostly of coloring the eggs my mother would then hide for me to find on Sunday mornings. We lived on our farm, then, which means I’d yet to enter third grade, and we’d yet to move to Oak Forest, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. Each year, while we…
Read MoreMemory as Resurrection: A Writing Activity
Cathy and I have had an odd feeling after selling her family home. She still tears up from time to time when she realizes our attachment to our native land has just become a bit less firm. For the past nine years, she’s been in that home four days out of each month, as she…
Read MoreHousecleaning: Lessons for Writers
I spent last week—my spring break week—helping Cathy clean out her family home in Illinois, so she could close the sale on Friday. We arrived on Monday evening and had three days to get the job done. We had a lot of help from family members, for which we’re grateful. All the loading of furniture,…
Read MoreUnder Pressure: A Writing Prompt
There comes a time when writers are overwhelmed either by the circumstances of their personal lives, their jobs, or the challenges of the writing itself. Today, I’m thinking particularly of those of us who teach because, as is usually the case this time of year, I’m swamped. I won’t list everything I have to do—after…
Read MoreBound by Books: Writing as an Act of Love
When I was a boy, I tended to be timid, observing the world, which I didn’t trust, from a safe spot on the periphery. I imagine my mistrust came from the experience of being taken from my home and left with my aunt and uncle when I was barely a year old. Many of you…
Read MoreTrust and Betrayal
A week ago, we enjoyed a false spring here in the Midwest—sunny days and temps in the low sixties—but I knew it was only an illusion. I knew winter would return with a slap to the face. The snow came a couple of days ago, and the wind, and the frigid temperatures. Such is life.…
Read MoreEarly Riser, Quick Starter: A Writing Prompt
I’m up early this morning—one of the curses of getting older—and it has me thinking about how familiar landscapes can be defamiliarized when viewing them at a time outside our regular habits. Things just look different. It’s as if we’re tourists in our own neighborhoods. Which leads me to this writing prompt. If you’re a…
Read MoreCan You Walk Away from Writing?
Our kitten, Stanley, has a jealous streak. If our older cat, Stella, is getting our attention, he wants it, too. If Stella occupies a space on a chair or the cat tree, he thinks that space must be his. Sometimes, Stella lets him have it, vacating her perch; at other times, she really lets him…
Read More