Fame and fortune — step right up!
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” — William Wordsworth Someone I’ve never met recently accused me (via, not surprisingly, an anonymous blog comment somewhere) of being a liar and a cynic because I lead monthly creative writing workshops. This person stated I was essentially conning people, making money by offering false hope…
Read MoreSlipping past the troll
Do you remember the Scandinavian beastie of folktale known as the Troll? Trolls often guard bridges and won’t let you cross until you’ve paid them (or perhaps they won’t let you pass at all, but will simply eat you!). They are much larger than humans and particularly ugly. They are frequently said to be extremely…
Read MoreWe are diminished by every broken heart
As many of you know, both my brothers died by suicide, and so, whenever I turn on the news and hear a report of another life being lost to despair and hopelessness, the little shard of ice in my chest which never quite melts, twists a little. This week, Tyler Clementi, a student at Rutgers…
Read MoreWhat we talk about when we talk about editors
I teach creative writing in a men’s prison, at monthly workshops in Princeton, and via email. I’ve taught at universities and writers’ conferences. Everywhere I teach, and no matter whom I teach, at some point the subject of editors inevitably pops up. I mentioned to a student recently that part of my job as a…
Read MoreA City of Crumpled Paper
During my prison writing class this week, one of my students approached me and said he wanted to talk. Like all the men, he wears khaki scrubs and enormous khaki lace-up hiking boots (which seems a rather cruel joke). Like most of the men, he towers above me. I always forget how short I am…
Read MoreDon't avert your eyes
Yesterday, one of my creative writing students popped by and told me she had finished writing an essay, but she wasn’t going to put it up on her brand new blog because it was too dark. She is a food writer, and writes essays so succulent, so delicious the words melt on your tongue. This…
Read MoreDon't worry about the other horses.
I recently had an email exchange with an artist whose work I admire greatly. She’s an accomplished photographer whose work, in recent times, she feels is getting lost in the swamp. It seems everybody with an eyeball is snapping away with their digital cameras and calling themselves professional photographers these days, just like everybody with…
Read MoreThe small voice of truth clears its throat
Imagine yourself walking down the street. You see a crowd harassing a man, pushing him, calling him vile names, bullying him… the man looks frightened. Perhaps he is trying to protect someone he’s with, perhaps his wife or child. The crowd, more of a mob now, past reason and spurred on by the force of…
Read MoreAntidote to arrogance
Once a week, I teach creative writing in a correctional facility for men. We meet in a classroom on the lower floor of the prison, which one gets to by negotiating the usual labyrinth of corridors, past armed ‘threshold guardians’ of various sorts, descending flights of stairs going down, down, down, and a number of…
Read MoreRiding the tree roots
I wonder if you, like me, have ever found yourself sitting in the dark, tear-stained and brittle with anguish, listening to Tom Waits, perhaps, emptying a bottle of scotch, or a pot of coffee, maybe smoking cigarette after cigarette, staring out a fractured glass into the night, your soul blank, your stomach churning, your thoughts…
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