Irish lit scholars, please don’t curse me for this. Because today is St. Paddy’s day, I thought I’d list — in no particular order and with deepest respect for anyone I’ve left off (and there will be a lot of those) — a few writers I have read and enjoyed who hail from the EmeraldContinue reading ““Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.””
Category Archives: writing
A Writer’s Notebook: 1,000 words
This exercise calls for writing from a photograph. This is the photo I used (click on the photo to go directly to the photo series that includes this pic): For a description of the exercise, see below. But first, what I wrote…. It was sunny but cool that Sunday afternoon when we drove out toContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: 1,000 words”
A short story
Just a short note to say I’ve added a previously published story to the site here. One of my first short-shorts, “Consuela Throws Her TV Away,” appeared in Orchid: A Literary Review back in 2003, but it was never available online and the magazine has now stopped publishing, so I thought it might be niceContinue reading “A short story”
Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah will leave a gaping hole in literature. His influence on my own work is strangely subtle and roundabout (I know him more for his influence on others–especially Tom Franklin–than for anything else), but when I think about the stories I’ve read, I realize how deeply effective they were. For all the brashness ofContinue reading “Barry Hannah”
A Writer’s Notebook: Outrunning the Critic
This comes from Brian Kiteley‘s The 3 A.M. Epiphany, some exercises from which appear on his University of Denver web page. For the exercise (which I copied and pasted below), click here. Sharon works as a bookkeeper for a senior center on the backside of town. Sharon knows her husband is distracted, knows he lovedContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Outrunning the Critic”
Women writers
I can’t write a post about women’s literature. I could, but it’s not my field of study and I’d just wind up offending the scholars who know what they’re talking about. But I can list some of the women authors and poets I admire most, which is all this is. And by all means, ifContinue reading “Women writers”
Dr. Seuss was Greek
I just wanted to jump in here and say hello to my friends and brothers at Sigma Phi Epsilon–Wisconsin Theta. SigEp is an outstanding fraternity based on the ideal of a balanced man and promoting the core values of Virtue, Diligence, and Brotherly Love. They seek to undo the negative stereotyping associated with many fraternities,Continue reading “Dr. Seuss was Greek”
Patrons of writing and teaching: The Muses
As I reviewed my list of writing patrons today, I realized that most of my patrons are women. I don’t know why this is, or what this might mean for my writing. A few years ago a friend pointed out The Gender Genie, an online gender analysis tool for prose–just paste in a chunk ofContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: The Muses”
A Writer’s Notebook: Revision
I’m chest deep in a revision of my novel right now, but I’m also reading Alice Munro, who makes me want to work on short fiction. So I figured this week, I’d put my hands together and do a revision exercise on one of my long-problematic short stories. Because this is slightly complicated, I’m goingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Revision”
A Writer’s Notebook: First line
For the exercise, see below. Henrietta stood nervously on the railway platform watching the passengers disembark. She could smell the grime down between tracks, the grease built up in the undercarriage, the stale odor of the passengers as their sweat and breath mingled with their alcohol, their cheese sandwiches, their dry newsprint, all of itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: First line”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 