A 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…

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Tips for Writing Scenes

I just returned from Louisville, Kentucky, where I presented a craft lecture at the spring residency of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing’s MFA program. I offered some tips and techniques for writing scenes in any sort of narrative with a particular emphasis on creative nonfiction. Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to notice…

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Hot Enough?: Practicing Subtext in Dialogue

We’re having a heat wave. Temps in the mid-nineties. Heat indices well over a hundred. Cathy and I went out yesterday afternoon to do some shopping, and the volume of traffic was noticeably lower. The stores were a bit emptier. There was no waiting for a table at one of our favorite restaurants. If a…

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