My Words Fly Up
The Kind of Books I Write
I just finished reading Ann Patchett’s collection of essays, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. She ranges far in subject matter—her dog, a research trip in an RV, the LA police department—but the second essay is the one that probably would be of the most interest to writers. In “The Getaway Car,” she
Another Promotion
The bookstore in Portsmouth, NH, RiverRun Books, has a publishing side to it called Piscataqua Press. I know a few people who have published through Piscataqua Press–Martha Barron Barrett (aka Mom) with Slow Travel and Barbara Hesselman Kautz with When I Die I’m Going to Heaven ‘Cause I Spent My Time in Hell–and people who
What I’m Reading
I read a lot. Not just a lot of books, but many different kinds of book. The photo here is of the books that decorated my nightstand during May, except for one that I already loaned to a friend. That was Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott. The back cover led me to
Endings
A student and I exchanged book recommendations recently, in which I didn’t like the ending in either book, and my student, Brian, didn’t like the ending in one of them. The book we agreed on was The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell. The one we didn’t agree on was Divisadero by Michael
Shamelessly Promoting My Mother’s Book
My mother has written three books–two novels, one nonfiction–and numerous newspaper columns and magazine articles. And now she has published a new book, a marvelous travel memoir of the three winters she and her partner spent chasing the sun. She and Sandy traveled, in successive winters, to New Zealand, South Africa and Spain, and Argentina
Be Social
MY WORDS FLY UP
In which I blog about the days I write and the days I don’t write; about teaching about writing; about reading (which is never enough); and occasionally about music, because sometimes a three-minute song can tell as good a story as a novel.