Posts by Lee Martin
Finding a Community of Writers
Since I’ve begun teaching in the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University, I thought I’d take this opportunity to encourage anyone who may be thinking about enrolling in a low-residency MFA program to consider this one. I’d also like to talk about the things one can gain from the best writing conferences and…
Read MoreThe Marks We Leave Behind: A Writing Exercise for Memoirists
After my father died, I found the marks he’d left: the wooden handles of tools, scraped and splintered from the pincers of his prosthetic hands—his hooks as he always called them; the clamped edges of pages in his Bible from where he’d held them. I can still recall him sitting at our dining table, working…
Read MoreWhat We Know Now That We Didn’t Know Then
For the second summer, Cathy and I are renting space in a community garden. We have a 4-foot by 12-foot raised bed. We’ve enjoyed our spring plantings of lettuce, spinach, and radishes, and now we’re watching the summer crops take hold: peppers, tomatoes, purple hull peas, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and okra. I’ve never grown…
Read MoreLittle Things: Returning to a Book-in-Progress
Today, Cathy and I cleaned up our landscaping. We deadheaded rose bushes, trimmed shrubs, pulled weeds. Just a little tidying up on a beautiful day in early summer. I’ve reached the point of the year when my teaching duties at Ohio State are finished until late August, and I’m trying to get back to a…
Read MoreThe Golden Times: Adding Texture to Our Characters and Their Stories
Cathy and I have had a pleasant weekend. Yesterday, we hosted a few graduate students from Ohio State and inducted them into our Patio Club. (By the way, anyone is welcome. Just let us know if you’d like to join.) Today, we attended a high school graduation party. At the latter event, Cathy watched all…
Read MoreAny Dark Cloud: Memoir, Obsession, and Loss
Here we are at the end of another academic year, only this year we’re facing an uptick in COVID cases at a time when too many people, pandemic-weary, have forsaken protocol, and we’re grieving in the aftermath of another school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas, not to mention the ongoing war in Ukraine. It’s…
Read MoreThe Year When: A Writing Exercise
This past week, I had the pleasure of being with the Phoenix Writers Network. What a delightful and talented group of writers. I shared a writing prompt with them, and the results were so impressive I thought you might find it useful. A writing problem I have from time to time is getting started on…
Read MoreBrutal Necessity: Applying Pressure to Our Characters
This is the time of year when carpenter bees make their appearance as they hunt for wood on houses to drill into. Last year, Cathy and I purchased a trap which is essentially a block of wood with an entry through a couple of holes that provide no exit. The bees have no choice but…
Read More(In memory of my mother on Mother’s Day, I re-post this): My Mother’s Hands Because my father lost his hands, my mother made a gift of hers. Cuticles ragged, knuckles scraped, fingernails smashed—farm work showed her no mercy. Her hands were made for more delicate things, but she gladly sacrificed them because, really, what else…
Read MoreQuestions for Revision
“I’m tired of all these tools leaning up against the wall,” Cathy says, and I know there’s no use to argue. We’re about to Marie Kondo the heck out of our garage. It’s a pretty Sunday at the start of May, and we are going to or-gan-ize. The hoe, the shovel, the rake, the this,…
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