I am 23, newly married, and my husband is on a research trip in Bermuda for the next six months. I am a young woman alone in our new home in Takoma Park, Maryland, but I feel safe up here in the upstairs apartment of a cute cottage house with a steep, angled roof. The … Continue reading Cutting cloth
Ramon reminded me instantly of Ernest Hemingway. He wore a white beard and loose linen pants. His voice was low and smooth. He spoke simple Spanish with us, and he smiled and made political jokes, gently testing the mettle of his son’s American friends. His apartment was much smaller than Quim and Cristina’s, and when … Continue reading When in Spain
“We Americans,” he said, “like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.” – W. Somerset Maugham I am reading too many books right now. I generally only read one book at a time. Well, amend that. I am more comfortable only reading one book at a time. When I was younger and … Continue reading But I’m a monogamist!
Amongst our Southern literature, children’s books, fantasy and sci fi, essays on world religions, and art books, we have a single magazine on our shelves: the Tenth Anniversary issue of Rolling Stone magazine from December 15, 1977. My parents saved it for me through the years because they know I love Annie Leibovitz, and the … Continue reading The 1977 Rolling Stone on our shelf: A Photo Essay
I have officially run out of story ideas. A friend of mine has encouraged me to submit work to the Southern Women‘s Review, and as the deadline approaches, I find myself creatively crippled. I am a Southern woman, born in the South, raised in the South, and after a few years in the not-South, we … Continue reading Writer’s Block
I try to make sure [my students] understand that writing, and even getting good at it, and having books and stories and articles published, will not open the doors that most of them hope for. It will not make them well. It will not give them the feeling that the world has finally validated their … Continue reading On being published
Butterfly Mind 