Category Archives: travel

A Writer’s Notebook: prose poem as personal essay

I have my students writing personal essays this week, but I’m a bit too busy right now to write an essay alongside them. I can, however, toss a prose poem your way. New Orleans, 1996 When I wandered the shoreline near Jackson Square the saxophonist called me, lured me to him like a rat toContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: prose poem as personal essay”

Small stone, Vol 2, #17

A long, long silence. Open the phone, close it. Check the ringer. Longer silence still. All this patience, all this waiting: such an exercise. Then, late in the evening with a plane passing overhead in the twilight, my wife calls to tell me she has arrived safe in the US. So close to home.

A word about the delays in posts lately

Hello, gang. Chances are, if you’re one of the dozen people who subscribe to this blog, you might have noticed that some of the posts these past few weeks have been pretty long delayed in turning up online or in your RSS reader. That’s not WordPress’s fault. See, I’ve been on the road, driving fromContinue reading “A word about the delays in posts lately”

Small stone, Vol. 2, #13

Driving cross-country, state after state rolling away under the tires, the Rocky Mountains my constant companion out my driver-side window, I find in the dusk hours, with the sun away behind everything and throwing the world into silver silhouette, the moisture in the sky condensing directly on the peaks, I am no longer able toContinue reading “Small stone, Vol. 2, #13”

A Writer’s Notebook: Mapping a story

This past Tuesday, I visited Zayed University to speak to an education class studying youth literature and preparing to write young adult stories of their own. (I’ll write a fuller post on this experience later this weekend.) We talked about books they were reading and how they might begin to write their own stories. TheContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Mapping a story”

Photo blog 49

“Ma’salama.” Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2 April 2011. One of the first things I did when I arrived in the UAE more than two years ago was to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. People here like to throw around the superlatives — largest pearl sold at auction, tallest building,Continue reading “Photo blog 49”

A Writer’s Notebook: “mentor texts”

I think I might accidentally have started a new novel. It doesn’t look like much in this exercise, I admit, but believe me, it’s frighteningly large inside my brain. I don’t have time for this right now, frankly, and I’m going to have to put this on hold for a while (I might save itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “mentor texts””