You Had Me At "Torture."
On this snowy morning, rather than spend my time out frolicking with the Rescuepoo in the drifts (which I promise I’ll do in a few minutes, really, Dog… try and be patient!) I feel compelled to enter into the ridiculous fray surrounding what may be the most unlikely literary pairing I’ve heard in a long…
Read MoreThe Spirituality of Imperfection
I’m re-reading a great book right now, called THE SPIRITUALITY OF IMPERFECTION. Sounds tailor-made for me, doesn’t it? I know, I know. This books speaks to me on several levels — as a person staying sober one day at a time, as a writer, and as someone seeking a closer relationship with the Sacred. In…
Read MoreMini Workshop — Conflict in Narrative
Today’s blog is a mini-workshop for writers, on the subject of conflict in narrative. For emerging writers, one of the most important aspects of story-telling is conflict. Something has to happen in a narrative, and what happens has to matter. By which I mean that whatever your protagonist wants has to be IMPORTANT — it…
Read MoreAiming For Oblivion
Today a woman told me she didn’t think she had a drinking problem because she never drank to feel better, or even to get high, the way others did; she drank so she didn’t have to feel anything. She found her emotions intolerable, and she drank aiming for oblivion. She wasn’t an alcoholic, she said,…
Read MoreGreat Way to Start the Morning
Because I am a little neurotic and insecure and oscillate between wanting to be left alone to write and wanting people to remember I exist — in short, you know, a WRITER — I have a Google alert set up. Sometimes it brings me wonderful things, as it did this morning when I was alerted…
Read MoreWhat To Do? What To Do?
I had a phone chat recently with a writer friend of mine. We both have books coming out this spring and are both dealing with the pre-publication jitters. His editor called him to say a blurb for the book had come in and it was a really nice blurb, but the ‘blurbist’ had suggested “a…
Read MoreChief Theresa Spence — A Moral Hero
I have been wondering, over the past days, how to tackle the subject of Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, the “Idle No More” movement, and the treatment of First Nations people by the Canadian government. My disappointment in Prime Minister Harper and his government grows with every hour. I am a Canadian with English, Irish…
Read MoreReturn of the Light
Winter Solstice. The longest night. The darkest time. After the sorrow of this particular month, with the senseless slaughter of innocents a week ago today, and the mass insanity of doomsday cults, perhaps we may be forgiven for not quite believing the light will ever return. The darkness seems so impenetrable, so impossible to shift.…
Read MoreA Prayer for the Children
The season of Christmas turns to the season of grief. Twenty-seven people have apparently died in a shooting at a Connecticut school this morning. Eighteen of them are children. There will be, no doubt, much talk over the coming days and weeks about gun violence in America. There will be strident voices on both sides. …
Read MoreArtworks Trenton and a Little Synchronicity
Last Friday I posted a notice up on Freecycle.org letting people know I had a mountain of firewood (thanks, Hurricane Sandy) to give away. One of the people who showed up was James Peeples. James is the Chairman of Artworks Trenton. Their mission statement says the organization, “Promotes artistic diversity by fostering creativity, learning, and…
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