E-Readers and Public Library Books: A Tribe of Readers
An article in this morning’s Columbus Dispatch regarding e-readers and the downloading of library books has me thinking about how we’ve been quick to exchange an aesthetic experience for convenience. I already have nostalgia for the now defunct card catalog in libraries. How close are we to only having virtual libraries and no printed materials…
Read MoreMake Room, Make Room!: Landscape, Character, the Writer’s Heart
Last Thursday, I did a reading at Indiana University-East in Richmond, Indiana. The reading was in the library on campus, and the podium was in front of a wall of glass that looked out onto a grassy area at the edge of woodlands. Just as my excellent host, TJ Rivard, called me to the podium,…
Read MoreWrite a True Thing: Let the Zing Knock You Slobberjawed
Did you hear about the toddler who was served alcohol at an Applebees restaurant in Michigan? Apparently, some left-over mixed cocktails ended up in the apple juice. Now there’s a zing for your tyke to put a little extra giddyup in his roll! How interesting that when I first typed the last sentence above, I…
Read More“Live Forever!”: Ray Bradbury and What It Takes to Make a Story
Sometime this past autumn Mort Castle, a writer near Chicago, asked me if I’d consider contributing a story to an anthology that he and co-editor, Sam Weller, were putting together. The anthology, Live Forever!, was to be a tribute to Ray Bradbury. I just learned yesterday that the anthology sold at auction last week to…
Read MoreWestern Carolina Literary Festival and Thoughts on Teachers and Novel Revision
I just got back from the Western Carolina Literary Festival at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, from where I’d hoped to do a new post, but, gosh-darn it, the lit fest was just too hoppin’ of a place. So now, back on flat land, I write to report on the festival, the climate…
Read MorePass Me the Cookie Cutter, I Have a Novel to Revise
A non-teaching day for me today, so I spent some time this morning looking at the draft of what I hope will be my next novel. I finished the draft back in October, and I’ve been letting it rest all this time. I hadn’t looked at it until recently. Now I’m going through it chapter…
Read More“Murder” by Barry Lopez: How Do Writers of Memoir Know When to Show and When to Tell?
Yesterday, the first meeting of my Spring Quarter classes, I shared a Barry Lopez piece with my creative nonfiction workshop, a short piece of memoir called “Murder.” The essay opens with the then twenty-year-old Lopez setting forth from New Mexico on his way to see his girlfriend in Salt Lake City. He’s carefree, enjoying the…
Read MoreOur Lives Are in the Details: Notice Everything
Sundays often tempt me to give in to nostalgia. Probably because I’m getting older and there’s more to look back on than there used to be, or maybe there’s something about the day that’s still a day of quiet for me, the way it was when I was younger and Sunday meant church and then…
Read MoreFirst I Did This and Then I Did That: The Anatomy of a Story
In a recent post, I told the story of my aunt and uncle and the evening they went out for dinner, and in front of the restaurant, before they could go inside, a young woman got into their backseat and said she needed them to drive her somewhere because the police were after her. My…
Read More“The Blog of the Year”: The Boffo Art of the Blurb
‘Tis the blurb season. . .but then when is it not? Each book accepted for publication sets off a chain of editors and authors asking other authors to please read an advance copy, and, if they feel so inclined, offer a few words of support. A “comment,” or “a promotional quote,” is we’re being tasteful…
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