A More Lively Mode
I read James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson in the summer of 1999. At the time I was gathering materials for what eventually became The Book of Mev. The following passage from Boswell left its…
Category: Writing
Take the Long View
I once wrote for a magazine: I made a calculation, that if I should write but a page a day, at the same rate, I should, in ten years, write nine volumes in folio, of…
Good News Variations: A Spring Writing Course 2017
Since mid-November, I’ve had exchanges with numerous people who were consumed with dread at so much bad news in the news. One afternoon, while walking in the Central West End, I was reminded of…
She Should Have Won the National Book Award
But then I think What do these awards mean They gotta serve somebody I’ve checked the libraries It’s her only book On this—or any— subject Why should the luminaries and guardians honor her Which is…
A Key to Understanding the Table of Contents to “Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine” from Our Friend Fellini
Do you like stories in which nothing happens, too? Well, in my film everything happens … OK? I’m putting everything in … Even the Sailor doing a tap dance. –8 1/2
A Writer and His Readers
And nothing would make me happier than having made it possible for some of my readers to recognize their own experiences, difficulties, questionings, sufferings, and so on, in mine, and to draw from that realistic…
From a Brand New Notebook by Katie Consamus
The magnificent Katie Consamus sent me this a while back, and I am happy to share it here. January 12, 2011 at 10:43pm From page one of a brand new notebook. Written first with a…
Writing Practice in Haiti, 2010
Occasionally, Sara Rendell asks me for some writing topics for her to take off on. Thus, the following email… Tuesday 3 August 2010 Dear Sara, Try these! Looking at the moon at night in Haiti…
Culled from a Journal: Summer in Salvador
A friend lived in El Salvador for several weeks one summer. Recently, she went to Art Hill and reread through the journal she kept those months, culled the following lines, and told me I could…