Rescued by a Rescue Dog
All right, I’ll just come right out and say it — I’ve become one of those annoying people who, if encouraged in even the smallest way, spend a good part of any conversation talking about my dog. If you read my recent post, “The Liberating Poetics of Low Expectations,” this probably comes as no surprise. …
Read More20 years married. Who'd have believed it?
As of today, My Best Beloved and I have been married for 20 years. This comes as something of a shock, especially to me. Prior to meeting My Best Beloved I did not have a great track record with relationships. I blame myself for this entirely. I chose the wrong men for the right reasons,…
Read MorePaul Muldoon — A Poet in the Prison
Last week, Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize and T.S. Elliot Prize winning poet and poetry editor of the New Yorker, came to visit the weekly class I teach at a prison here in New Jersey. The classroom is in the basement of the prison. Bright primary-colored squares on the floor tiles, and pale blue walls strive…
Read MoreA Third Possibility
People frequently ask me, “Where did you go to college?” and some look as though I’ve just walloped them in the face with a flounder when I reply, “I didn’t go to college.” How can that be, I see them thinking, you’re a published author. Yeah. And in this era of nearly mandatory MFAs, I…
Read MoreWhat Can't Be Taught
Being a writer, I write, but I also teach creative writing. I teach a workshop once a month in a lovely bright room in a cafe in Princeton, New Jersey; and I teach once a week in a dim, goatish-smelling, basement cubbyhole in a prison in Bordentown, New Jersey. Except for the setting, and perhaps…
Read MoreMore than enough shame to go around
Anyone who has read this blog even occasionally knows my feelings on the psychological dangers inherent in chasing the publishing carrot and the sort of relentless self-promotion writers (and many other artists) are expected to engage in these days. Sure, we all want readers and publishing can be lovely, but I don’t believe the way…
Read MoreThe addict's fractured mirror
Just now I am deep in research for my next book, which involves reading a lot of fairy tales. One is “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Anderson. It is, in parts, rather treacly, but the central metaphor is a powerful metaphor for addiction. In this tale a demon creates a mirror that distorts the…
Read More10 Hard truths about writing
Recently, a student told me she was too scatterbrained to write her novel without help, and that she needed someone to crack the whip, set deadlines, help her focus, etc. She said she needed an editor or a partner, or both. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that sort of thing from writing students.…
Read MoreThe liberating poetics of low expectations
A dear friend of mine, the wonderful poet and fiction writer Lisa Pasold, and her equally wonderful husband, singer Bremner Duthie came to visit My Best Beloved and me last weekend. As Lisa and I walked her whiskery hound, Barkley the talk turned, as it does among writers, to the writers’ life. Lisa told me…
Read MoreThe Defiant Ones
…a while ago a young man trying to stay sober called me from another city and told me he was calling to “tell on himself,” meaning he needed to tell someone he was thinking of doing something he knew wasn’t in his best interests.
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