Excellent breakdown |
"As a rough rule, it seems that writers fall into two camps. There are those who delight in rousting the truth from its concealment amid pieties and convention. If they must strip-mine the world to ex...
Posted by on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:59:00 GMT |
Back in the saddle(s). Saddli? |
The first piece of the new Queens semester is due Friday. It's time to put away the bucket and sand shovel and get back to work. I also auditioned yesterday for the first time in two years...
Posted by on Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:39:00 GMT |
Summer is a sweaty monkey |
The last Queens residency seems ages ago. Other priorities crowd into the frame: family, travel, remodeling, calling the plumber to fix the damage I caused while remodeling. I wonder if this is ...
Posted by on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:21:00 GMT |
Literary celebrity, in perspective |
By 1929, four years after the publication of The Great Gatsby, F.Scott Fitzgerald could command $4000 from The Saturday Evening Post for a single short story.In 2008 dollars, that's the equival...
Posted by on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:09:00 GMT |
Kill your banana |
I've noticed a disturbing trend of violence toward animals in fiction, usually employed as a foreshadowing device. If a lazy writer wishes to evoke the emotional impact of injury and/or death, b...
Posted by on Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT |
Tell me the truth. Do I look fat in this paragraph? |
I pulled out the stack of critiques I received from the workshop residencies and read through them, which led to a few wild highs, some head-shaking and a lot of laughter. I have a thick ski...
Posted by on Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:00:00 GMT |
Insomnia |
" . . . on sleepless nights, the night offers toads and black dogs and corpses of the drowned."- Yasunari KawabataThe alarm goes off in two hours.
Posted by on Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:44:00 GMT |
Grad school for grown-ups |
No cell phones ringing, no rustling or fidgeting or looking at the clock. The faculty don't have to raise their voices, because the entire room is focused on what they have to say. On...
Posted by on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:24:00 GMT |
Follow me |
I had no desire to be on campus for the anniversary and its media vermin, so I escaped to the mountains. Being a state employee has its perks, two of which are the paid community service days ...
Posted by on Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:39:00 GMT |
Do I put "End of World" under pro or con? |
So, the CERN Large Hadron Collider . . . it’s pretty cool. Lot’s of gee-whiz stuff going on, bashing particles together at enormous speeds to see what happens. Physicists ...
Posted by on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:23:00 GMT |
