Samuel Snoek-Brown

Photo blog 82

Speaking of smart kids….

In what is surely serendipitous timing, given my post yesterday about my smart tutee, today I found out that my nephew Aidan has been inducted to the National Honor Society for elementary students. This is a huge deal — I was probably smart enough for it (I did wind up getting a PhD), but I was neverContinue reading “Speaking of smart kids….”

“Teacher Sam”

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be finishing some term-long or year-long tutoring jobs I’ve been working. Two of my students are high schoolers (one is graduating, and I’m proud to say I had a hand in her getting accepted to the University of Oregon, though my part was small). But one of myContinue reading ““Teacher Sam””

A Writer’s Notebook: (more) haiku

So, as promised, a few haiku: children laughing on swings dress heels clacking on cut stone — the grass grows unnoticed stone bench hard and cold exhaust fumes burn through the hot wind — sunlight in my hair like dark chocolate so bitter and sharp — so smooth smoke drifts in the breeze I’ve mentionedContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: (more) haiku”

“I’m gonna write someday, when I have free time.”

Among my writer friends on Facebook, people are circulating this short humor piece from the Huffington Post called “S**t People Say to Writers,” after those at-first-hilarious-but-almost-immediately-inane “Shit people say” videos that were popular a few months ago. (Props to Huff Post for having the wisdom to avoid making this into a video.) The list is short, butContinue reading ““I’m gonna write someday, when I have free time.””

Photo blog 81

For this week’s Photo blog, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to tell you a story, as it was told to me, in pictures (and you’ll have to excuse my phone’s poor-quality camera): Sometimes, when cities need to keep track of where they’ve buried their cables, they’ll paint little white symbolsContinue reading “Photo blog 81”

Editing and haircuts

A few months ago, author Ethel Rohan (whose beautiful book Cut Through the Bone you all should buy), made a comment in her blog about her recent haircut. “I cut off most of my hair, twelve inches of length and a crazy amount in volume, and now have Flash hair.” (I love that phrase: “Flash hair.”) SheContinue reading “Editing and haircuts”

Cover me, artists!

I’ve had a LOT of new visitors this past week, which is awesome. Loads of those new visitors went the extra step and subscribed to my blog, which is even more awesome. (Hi, readers!) Many of those new subscribers are wordsmiths of some sort or another — journalists, poets, bloggers, story writers, novelists — andContinue reading “Cover me, artists!”

My Dutch book is here!

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d been contacted by a Dutch editor about including one of my photos in Droomonderduik, a Dutch book she was editing. I agreed, and in exchange, she offered to send me a copy of the book when it was out. Today, by international mail, the book arrived!Continue reading “My Dutch book is here!”

A Writer’s Notebook: sonnet

Good grief, was it really March when I last posted one of these? I have REALLY let myself go! (Someday I’ll fill you in on my week-long Oreo binge.) In my defense, I was dealing with a dying cat (she’s feeling better now, by the way), a healthy dose of fiction rejection, and, well, that’sContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: sonnet”