Lee Martin

To begin, a confession: I never wanted to write a blog. A few years ago, when I was getting my first web site, my designer, who specializes in authors’ web pages, said, “You’ll need to do a blog.” I told him I didn’t want to do a blog. He said, “But you have to. That’s…

On the last day of my father’s life, he mowed his yard. It was the hottest day of the year, and he mowed because that grass needed cutting and he wasn’t about to leave it undone. His heart seized with the effort, and my mother saw him, collapsed on the grass, already dead. She’d tried…

For some reason—maybe because I feel us edging closer to autumn—I’m remembering how, when I was a small boy, I’d walk with my mother into the woods on our farm, and together we’d gather hickory nuts. For those of you who don’t know, a hickory nut is encased in a thick black husk. You can…

This is the time of year when summer is starting to feel a bit shabby. We’ve made the turn to August—the dog days—and the heat, the sun, the humidity have begun to feel oppressive. Here in the Midwest, the grass is brown, the daylilies are fading, the leaves of trees curl for want of rain.…

Last week, I posted about how a fiction writer knows when to unpack what a character is carrying around inside him or her, and when to stay outside the consciousness and let the details do the work. Today, I offer a writing activity designed to let you practice both. The objective is to try two…

You know that feeling; you get home from a trip with this suitcase full of stuff, and you have to decide whether to unpack right away, or whether to postpone the chore in favor of plopping down in your favorite chair, or on your favorite sofa, or in your favorite bed, just to rest. And…

A brief post this week from the Antioch Writers Workshop. When I see the high school students here who were awarded scholarships to attend this workshop, I remember what it was like when I, too, was young and trying to find a way to express everything that I was carrying around inside me. When I…