“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….
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,…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
Grief you motherfucker, You robber of joy, You thief in the night, Stealing and killing. Burning my village to the ground. Grief, you backpack full of rocks, You unrelenting burden I bear Just when I…