Posts by Lee Martin
Snow Was General: Writing Beautiful Sentences
Last night, snow was general all over central Ohio. If you’re a James Joyce fan, you’ll hear the echo of this sentence to the end of Joyce’s story, “The Dead.” Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless…
Read MoreCuriosity and the Fiction Writer: Ten Questions
Last night at a gathering of folks from my MFA workshops, the talk turned to dating and the attempt to find a romantic connection. I listened to those who are using dating apps talk about how horrible it is to try to find a potential partner that way. I’ve known success stories from the…
Read MoreGet At the Marrow: Tension in Dialogue
As I’ve aged, I’ve gotten thin-skinned. I mean that literally. As a result of my stroke in 2012 and subsequent episodes of atrial fibrillation, I take an adult-strength aspirin every day to keep blood clots from forming. Now, when I bump or scrape an arm or a leg, I’m more prone to bruise, developing ugly…
Read MoreBerryville, Illinois: I was Listening to Your Lessons on Love
When I was a child, my Thanksgivings were always spent with my mother’s side of my family. We gathered at my grandmother’s house in the crossroads village of Berryville, Illinois, catty-corner from the general store that my grandparents had run once upon a time. My grandmother’s house is now gone as is the store and…
Read MoreThe Last Time I. . . .
After my father was dead, and after my mother could no longer live independently, the task of dealing with their property fell to me, their only child. I remember, with an ache that never left me, the days I spent alone in their home, sorting through personal papers, deciding what to keep and what to…
Read MoreA Boy Named Hog Sausage
Last Thursday, much to my and Cathy’s regret, our washing machine gave up the ghost. While we await the delivery of a new one, we’ll have to make a trip to a coin-operated laundry. It’s been a while since I’ve been in one of those, but for many years I accompanied my mother on Saturdays…
Read MoreRight Before Our Eyes
On Saturday, I participated in the Kentucky Book Festival. The venue was the Joseph-Beth bookstore, a two-level store in Lexington. We authors sat at our tables with our books displayed, and we chatted with folks who stopped to look at our books. The author who was sharing my table never appeared, so from time to…
Read MoreWhere’s the Joy?
It’s a beautiful autumn Sunday here in central Ohio. It makes me think of long-ago Sunday afternoon drives in the country with my parents. We drove the gravel roads, and my father pointed out where certain families had lived, the fact of their existence found now only in the overgrown mouths of lanes. We always…
Read MoreThe Stories in the Crowd
This past week, Cathy and I ventured to the Circleville Pumpkin Show—a festival so renowned in Ohio that it draws tens of thousands of visitors, even on a weekday afternoon. Cathy and I share a love of people-watching. Our trip to Circleville, then, was more than a quest for pumpkin donuts; it was a chance…
Read MoreLove Is Blind (and So Is Essay Writing)
A year or so ago, my MFA students were constantly talking about a reality dating show called Love Is Blind. Couples “dated” in pods, separated by a wall and unable to see each other unless they eventually agree to be engaged. If you’ve ever watched the show, you know the thrill of not knowing—of trusting…
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