The year is drawing to a close and as I look back over my
reading for the year, I realize I’ve fallen short of my goals. But it’s for good
reasons. In 2021, I was fortunate to have an increased amount of editing work,
which means...
“To be remembered is next to
being loved” –Emily Dickinson
Often, we'll call books in a range of genres “love letters” to a place. Whether it’s memoir, poetry, fiction, or
even travel writing, this term is used to describe...
You enter here, in helmet and greatcoat,Chasing after her, without a mask.You, Ivanushka of the old tales,What ails you today?So much bitterness in your every wordSo much darkness in your...
My second read for my summer of houses reading project is Helen Oyeyemi’s White
is For Witching. As I mentioned in my previous post, Oyeyemi’s writing has been compared to Shirley Jackson’s,
and for the gothic tone and...
Reading a book that scores of people rave about always comes
with a sense of anticipation. At least, it does for me, because I’m of the mind
that scores of people usually aren’t entirely wrong. Even if I don’t end up
raving...
Recently, I moved to a new home. Throughout my life, I have lived in
close to two dozen dwellings; this latest is notable for being the first home
purchased on my own. Houses matter quite a bit to some people, don’t they?...
When I wrote
my second novel, Bellflower, I was thinking about the end of a life, making
sense of events and memories. I had seen loved ones lose their sense of time and place. At the end of my grandmother's life, she sometimes...
"As soon as we express something, we devalue it strangely. We believe ourselves to have dived down into the depths of the abyss, and when we once again reach the surface, the drops of water on our pale fingertips no longer resemble the ocean from which they came...Nevertheless, the treasure shimmers in the darkness unchanged." ---Franz Kafka
