All my life, I’ve believed that no matter how dark this world gets, there’s light behind that darkness, light that always shines through in the end. This belief has been fundamental to my writing, to the sometimes-dark stories I tell and to all the stories I tell. Terrible things happen. But light—something within humanity that generates light—finds […]
All Those Defiant Sparks Read More »
Or what I’ve been doing the past ten years Recently, when I told an extended family member I had work to do, he snapped back at me, “What work? When was the last time you wrote a book — ten years ago?” His response says more about him than me, of course. I’ve gotten “come on, you’re
Decades Come and Decades Go Read More »
Hot,Hotter,Scorching.Temperatures spike,Engulfing the country,Expect a heat wave.Excessive,Extreme,Little relief in sight. Summer has not been able to escape. Source: “Another Major Heat Wave Sweeps the U.S.,” The New York Times, August 2, 2022.
Heat Wave (a found poem) Read More »
Writing is a strange business sometimes. We think we’re writing for readers, and then it turns out we’re writing for ourselves. We think we’re writing for our present selves, and then it turns out we’re writing for the children-we-were or the adults-we-will be.Or both. Today I came upon ”Seal Story,” a selkie short I wrote
“Once long ago, there was a seal who loved the sea…” Read More »
ScientistsAre not opening a portal to hell. ScientistsRestarted their accelerator—The world’s most powerful accelerator—To learn more about the origins of the universe. Social media suggest a different purpose:That scientists are using the machine to open a doorwayFor demons, Wicked spirits, High Evil Principalities. The claim is baseless.Scientists are engaged in scientific-related activities. Experts use the
Fact Check (a found poem) Read More »
The trouble with talking about getting “back to normal” is that time doesn’t run backwards. It runs forwards. We can no more return to a pre-Covid world than we can return to typewriters or gas lamps or steam trains or diplomacy without the threat of nuclear weapons. The fact that Covid is likely to be
There is no “back to normal.” There’s only forward to whatever comes next. Read More »
Variants run freelyAround the world.Countries grapple with fatigue. New waves,Rising cases, Straining systems,Apathy. The virus pushes at us.We must push back. Found poetry from “WHO warns covid ‘nowhere near over’ as variants spike in U.S., Europe,” The Washington Post, July 13, 2022
Nowhere Near Over (a found poem) Read More »
I always thought personal responsibility meant not just taking responsibility for how your actions affect you, but also how your actions affect others. I mean, if you throw a ball and it breaks a window, you don’t just check whether any of the glass shards cut your own skin and then move on. You also
As I enter this strange new unparented new stage of my life, I’ve been thinking about how my family gave me many gifts. And I’ve also been thinking about how they gave me stories about myself, some less true than others, some more harmful than others. As happens in families, there are those who’ve chosen
The stories we tell Read More »