Day 5 Saturday, April 10, 2010 Today was a weird, difficult day. It started out a little off: Jennifer forgot her chapstick, my hair was so wild in the wind that Jennifer had to braid it just to keep it under control, and we kept missing our trams by seconds and getting stuck waiting aroundContinue reading “The Netherlands: Day 5”
Tag Archives: travel
Photo blog 1
I’m going to start a new feature here this week: I’m going to start posting photos. When we were stranded in Amsterdam last during the Iceland volcano fiasco, we decided to ease the tension of being trapped (I called it “maintenance,” as in, maintaining a healthy stress level) by visiting a few of the museumsContinue reading “Photo blog 1”
The Netherlands: Days 3 & 4
Day 3 Thursday, April 8, 2010 There were too many highlights today, and it’s hard to single out the second-best moment. Was it the train ride south to the Hague, the countryside rolling by as we wrote postcards in the flashing sunlight? The splendid Maritshuis museum, with its brilliant focus on the best of theContinue reading “The Netherlands: Days 3 & 4”
The Netherlands: Intro and Days 1 & 2
As I did with my travel journal from Vienna last fall, I am going to start posting my journal from my recent trip to The Netherlands. And, like the Vienna posts, I’m going to break them up by days, partly to keep the posts (relatively) short but also to try and replicate the journal-writing experience.Continue reading “The Netherlands: Intro and Days 1 & 2”
The good times are killing me
We writers and academics love to ask each other what books we’d want with us if ever we’re stranded on a desert island, and we love offering clever, literary answers: Jane Austen, Cormac McCarthy, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Dhammapada. But we’re lying to ourselves.
A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 2)
Today, we’re we should have been on our way home from the Netherlands (see the note at the bottom), so I’ll conclude the story of my great-grandfather and return to other writing exercises next week. As with last week’s entry, I’m still working from the basic interview-storytelling exercise I mentioned in the first “Capt. Snoek”Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 2)”
A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 1)
Because we’re in the Netherlands, land of my ancestors, I thought I’d continue the story of my great-grandfather William Karel Snoek, Sr., who left his home in Hoorn, Holland at the age of 12 and took to a life at sea. There is no new exercise this week, though–I’m still working from the basic interview-storytellingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 1)”
On the road again
I mentioned the other day that I would be on vacation for part of April. We’re headed to the Netherlands to revel in the land of my ancestors (my great-grandfather came from Hoorn). I will have Internet access in Amsterdam and elsewhere, but I don’t plan to spend my vacation posting blog updates–I’m supposed toContinue reading “On the road again”
A Writer’s Notebook: Haiku
Since I mentioned Benzaiten (and suggested a possible connection with haiku) in my last patrons post, I’ve had haiku on the brain. I am not a poet — or, certainly not an accomplished one — but I have always felt comfortable with the haiku. For me, haiku represents the best of what poetry can offer:Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Haiku”
International Prize for Arabic Fiction
This is a bit slow in coming, but I’m working on an article for Driftless about reading culture and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, and I remembered that last year around this time I posted about the shortlist and winner for the Booker-sponsored International Prize for Arabic Fiction. So I thought I’d post theContinue reading “International Prize for Arabic Fiction”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 