Readerwriters
During this active seedtime, Emerson was also reading in all directions. He read systematically only for a particular project. He read current books and old books…And from almost everything he read he culled phrases, details,…
Category: Writing
Ginsberg Variations
“Catch yourself thinking.” —Allen Ginsberg, “Cosmopolitan Greetings” Catch myself gossiping. Catch myself kvetching. Catch myself zoning out. Catch myself sneering. Catch myself smirking. Catch myself looking away. Catch myself signaling. Catch myself signing off superciliously….
Share the Wealth with Annie Cosby … When Writing’s The Easy Part: Lessons from Writing, Publishing & Loving Novels
Writing is difficult. Really, really difficult. Growing up, I always thought that would be the hardest part of my dream of becoming an author. Actually finishing a book, a book people would want to read,…
Mentshes/5
Sign Up by Lindsey Trout Hughes Hi, Mark! I hope this note finds you well. I saw your post last week about the spring writing course. I asked Katie Consamus over coffee if she’d like…
Writing to Wake Up 2020: A Winter Course in Creativity and Community
Writing is essential to my life, like breathing. I can live without a husband but I cannot live without writing. By writing I become one with the world and with myself. —Nawal El Saadawi What…
The True Secret of Writing (and Reading and Sharing)
In the Writing Our Own History course, I share some gleanings from my reading. For example, the following passages are from Natalie Goldberg’s book, The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. Maybe one…
An Alphabetical List
The following is an alphabetical list of topics and/or possible chapter titles for a book I was working on in 2011. At this stage, it was autobiographical. It eventually morphed and became the novel, Dear…
Plunging into the Work
Conversations with Christopher Isherwood Edited by James J. Berg and Chris Freeman University of Mississippi Press, 2001 One summer a few years ago I went on a binge of some of Christopher Isherwood’s books, particularly…
The Writing Life/1
At My Wake, Someone Will Hear Someone Else Say… “He was always telling me to share my writing…” “You, too? He said that to me, like… weekly!” “Weekly? He’d badger me daily for a fortnight…
Share the Wealth with Elizabeth House: Stumbling Through the Writing Process Energized by Diet Pepsi and Peer Pressure
“You don’t know what you don’t know.” Elizabeth House was told this once while working in a facility where the residents were struggling with different areas of addiction. She learned in that experience, and many…