I have four delicious days with no urgent deadlines or projects. I’d get this kind of satisfaction from traveling to Tahiti, receiving two daily massages for a week, or… being able to metabolize meals made of nothing but red wine, bacon and dark chocolate with no impact on my weight. I honestly don’t know what […]
Now that my time is parsed, sectioned, subdivided, and carefully annotated to account for every one of my multiple (and seemingly endless) obligations–I have to confront the obvious, which I love to pretend doesn’t apply to me: I’m human. If I can reconcile myself with what might seem like an obvious proposition, then, what does […]
I’m leaving West Philadelphia for Northern Liberties. I’ve lived on the western shore of this city for almost twelve years – its the longest time span I’ve ever spent in a single neighborhood. I used to fantasize about which Philadelphia neighborhood I would leave for, and then the idea of leaving became totally absurd. I […]
Tonight I finally opened one of my two mystery “old file” boxes I’ve been lugging around from apartment to apartment since the mid 90s. Boy, I was organized back in the 90s. I found traces of my old New York life, one of my many partially discarded and partially digested selves. I uncovered my original […]
I haven’t written in months. My head is starting to feel like the cork in a champagne bottle. The pressure of unexpressed things is building steadily. First it manifests as a nagging need unmet–the perennial itch I can’t scratch, or at least won’t scratch yet. Then it becomes an annoying flood of ideas. Half-baked images, […]
It’s been a full week since I beat down my first year of grad school into submission. I remember last Thursday like a distant dream: the other me and her journey, now complete. It feels like a million years ago. It feels like another reality. My priorities have quickly been rewritten. I’m now in the […]
Now that I’m more diligent about sending pieces out, I’m getting volumes of rejections–several a week in fact. Most don’t say much, but a few say things like, “We enjoyed reading and discussing your work; in fact, it made it to the final tier of the editorial process. Although we are going to have to pass […]
here’s a quick list of my writing sins (likely incomplete): I say all cool things I think of twice, or more. My narrative pacing requires tuning–I either rush or linger too long My plots (do they exist?) I underwrite certain key points, or bury them I leave awkward phrasing lying around I like ideas and […]
My partner accuses me of only writing sad stories. Why does he think this? Because of my endings. I say nay, I write bittersweet stories. Life itself is a wonder of bitter-sweetness, what other endings could I write that would still feel true? This tendency of mine to err on the side of hopeful melancholy […]
My lack of time generally, and my surging ambition specifically, make me feel like I’m in a kiln, being slowly baked by my desire for further publications. The terrible truth–now that I have an inkling that I might occasionally produce publishable work, is that I’m desperate to hit that quality level more consistently: I want […]
Sometimes I look in the mirror of craft and this is what I see: Too many notions, concepts and fancies oozing out of my brain and too few finished stories. There’s good reason that I started my writing career as a poet–I’m full of atmospheric images, but I’m not so good on the plot thing. […]
We took more than 2000 pictures in our short 9 day stint in France. When I went to put together a small album, 53 pictures total, a subset of the images we had collected, I ended up largely with pictures of people I love. I had some beautiful architecture or surprising scenery in there, but […]
So I went to Paris with my honey, which I understand you are supposed to do, and we toured the bestselling sights, which I suppose was my duty, and it turned out to be a delight, because it forced me to look again, spectate afresh, at what I already thought I knew. So my lesson […]
Just got word that my latest story, Rosamonde Wakes, is now online at FRiGG Magazine.
I’m flying out, friends, soon. My mind is already traveling while my body dutifully reports for my shift at work. My mind’s teeth are slowly biting into the most intensely chocolate frosting of all the frostings found on top of chocolate éclairs in Paris, while my tongue feels the pliant flesh of the puff pastry […]
I find myself invigorated this month, at least since I’ve finished my last two class projects. I’m enjoying the mild, mostly rainless April weather with all its premature flowering activity. The mix of colorful buds weighing down tree branches, and the tender pale green of the newly unfurling leaves, make me want to skip about […]
It occurred to me that as some parents tend to prefer a specific age in a child’s development, some favoring babies, others toddlers, and others teens, so it is likely also the case with babies — they themselves might be more comfortable at certain ages than others. This for me would explain why some babies […]
I’ve had both excellent news and one devastating experience this week. Maybe this is the shape life is supposed to take: part dream, part nightmare. Anyway, the good news is easy, I heard another piece of mine will be published–three times published makes me feel legitimate. Three times sounds like a streak, like it wasn’t […]
I was sitting in a lecture last Thursday with the Dean of Penn’s School of Public Policy and Practice, and he was telling us about the US’s dismal record when it comes to child mortality due to abuse. The number of children dying from neglect and abuse has remained constant since the 1970s, despite the […]
Some beautiful messaging from the universe happened tonight. I came home to find one of my SASE envelopes, dutifully addressed to and from me, with a Love (forever) stamp on the face, empty. The envelope, carefully addressed, posted and returned to my attention was empty. The seal had broken, so the contained missive had slipped […]