I went to Powell’s tonight and heard two essayists read and then talk for a bit about essays. Elena Passarello read from Animals Strike Curious Poses and Jesse Donaldson read from On Homesickness: A Plea. MAN DO I MISS TALKING ABOUT ESSAYS! Some people do that on FB, and I Read more…
my specific interactions with students the reasons that I cried a couple of times today why/why not I might actual be a better teacher this year than last year all the things I need to write essays about Can’t or won’t, though? I am usually an over-sharer, but sometimes the boundaries Read more…
I read three essays today, on the eve of my workshop class starting. The first two are collected in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015, edited by Rebecca Skloot (and series editor, Tim Folger). Here are my notes: “The City and the Sea” by Meera Subramanian, originally published in Read more…
Today, a writer I worked with late last fall posted about (among other things) her experience of me as a reader and coach. It was a very generous review and I felt my usual mix of gratitude and disbelief. Grateful for the kind words and unconvinced that they really describe Read more…
I’m sick right now. I haven’t been sick in ages and so this head cold feels apocalyptic. I have been trying to get a new job, and my trying seems to be going nowhere. My current job is getting me out of debt, and my second job is getting me Read more…
The Other Walk: Essays By Sven Birkerts Birkerts’ collection of essays, The Other Walk, is a compendium of acts of contemplation and the digressions of the mind. Just reading it has inspired the last couple of posts here on Roaming Cowgirl, where I have allowed a memory or an associative Read more…
Since Sunday evening, I’ve been in residence at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown MA, thanks to a generous scholarship. My class this week is being taught by Joanne Dugan and it’s called “The Photograph and The Word: Showing what you can’t always see.” I’ve been inspired by the Read more…
On a June morning in 2006, weighing in at what was fighting weight at the time, I woke up at 4 am, put on a one-piece swimsuit with a padded butt, ate a whole wheat muffin with peanut butter (and half of a banana), and drove myself to Decker Lake Read more…
My writing intensive is over, for all intents &c. My scholar-collaborator and I are still busting our ass trying to finish our piece, but the communication from here on out will be virtual. I have many feelings. But, after several months of being told exactly (and only) how a certain Read more…
… is probably good every once in awhile. I spent the whole day on the ASU campus (one working coffee break) listening and writing hard. Then I pitched my book idea to a couple of agent/editors. Their responses were fairly positive… But I have a long way to go before Read more…