Tag Archives: travel

To all my friends and readers attending AWP

People who know me are probably sick of me whining and moaning over AWP in Chicago this year, because I can’t go even though it’s one of my favorite conferences in one of my favorite cities. But alas, it was not meant to be — even if I had managed to scrape together the cashContinue reading “To all my friends and readers attending AWP”

A Writer’s Notebook: travel fiction

This isn’t all new writing, but some of it is. This is, though, a response to an exercise, which I’ll explain below. When Name was a child, his mother would tell him stories while his father and and older brother worked and the infant children slept. Some of the stories were local tales of theContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: travel fiction”

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”

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”

Photo blog 41

“Grit.” In the desert near Sweihan, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 4 February 2011. Believe it or not, these are not tilt-shift photos. They’re both naturally focused like this–I just rested the camera on the ground and let the autofocus do the rest. But I am as fascinated with the technique as I am withContinue reading “Photo blog 41”