This week a writer friend named Molly Blaisdell wrote a blog post on the importance of play to her writing work. Before I read her words, I had been stuck on what to post and, honestly, stuck on whether to write all together. I was even having Negative Nellie give it up thoughts. And those thoughts felt like an… Read more
Writing
Question of the week: How do you reclaim a place with memories of sorrow? I recently read a piece by Martha Beck on how to mentally rewrite your tragedies so that you can find meaning even in the random badness that sometimes happens to us. In the case Beck describes, a woman is able to… Read more
Warning: The open letter is full of spoilers. If you haven’t read the book, be warned. Dear John Green, Darn you. Darn you for writing a book that made me cry out loud. Darn you for writing a book that kept my behind stuck in the chair on a day off when I should have… Read more
Terry Pratchett is a name I’ve heard over the years but not someone I had read before. When I saw that one of my favorite writers Neil Gaiman had worked with Pratchett, I decided to check him out. The Carpet People caught my eye and so I brought it home from the library — first… Read more
I’ve worked with many Korean students over the years, but woven throughout my life I’ve also been blessed with many Korean American friends. These lovely friends have touched my life in ways large and small. One lady came to my house to teach me her language. A professor friend once helped me write an essay when I was… Read more
Lately, I’ve felt traumatized by books. Two of the books I was able to stop reading when they upset me. I didn’t care enough about the characters to make myself read any more about teenagers doing drugs and blowing up their lives or risk running into another scene like the botched horse euthanasia that I… Read more
The young woman stood before me speaking English clearly with an accent that rounded out sounds. Her eyes lit with joy as her tight curls framed her face. She struggled with her writing, she said, and wondered if she could join our ESL classes. When she told me she spoke Arabic, I understood the trouble. Most of… Read more
I’ve finally revised my About Page. It took most of the week to get the written ‘selfie’ into shape, so I’m cross posting it here. I don’t remember the rat’s name. I wish I did. I saw the rat terrier sometime after I’d been chased by the pig. Or maybe it was before. It was, after… Read more