I have arrived at the Jentel Artist Residency for my May 15-June 13 writer’s residency, and all I can say is: Holy smokes. I’m attaching some photos to give a sense of the place; I will try to post more in the next month although it might not be until I’m home because I’m going…… Continue reading My view from Jentel
Category: Writing Process
Interview with Prairie Schooner
I spoke with the good, good folks over at Prairie Schooner about the Book Prize for my collection, When Are You Coming Home?, which will be released this fall. Among other things, I talk about a visit to the optometrist. Because, sure. Here is the interview if you’re so inclined. And submit to the prize…… Continue reading Interview with Prairie Schooner
Dispatches from my window, or, adjusting the blinds
Early in the new year, I got up too early (after duking it out with my old pal Insomnia) and watched the sun rise. Squinting in the dawn light, I started writing in my notebook, a crucial activity that I had let slide in the past few months as I tumbled down the hole of…… Continue reading Dispatches from my window, or, adjusting the blinds
The dog will always bark
God damn dog is barking now and it is time to get to work anyways. … the amazing thing is that the work goes on. And one day it will be through. — John Steinbeck, from Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath I first read Steinbeck’s Working Days, the diary he kept…… Continue reading The dog will always bark
I’m delighted at you
That title is the latest amusing pronouncement from my friend’s adorable two-year-old, whom I got to see yesterday via the wonders of Facetime. I found myself laughing even after we hung up, until my stomach seized up, until it had nothing at all to do with a child’s charming phrasing. I haven’t been laughing a…… Continue reading I’m delighted at you
The light at the window
As a longtime wake-in-the-night insomniac, I have become obsessed these past few hectic months with the edge of my bedroom window. Not the whole window, just the right vertical strip that I can see from behind the blackout curtains when I’m lying in bed. This slip of window has become my gauge. No light: too…… Continue reading The light at the window
The good of your writing
“The world did not say to her as it said to them, Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me. The world said with a guffaw, Write? What’s the good of your writing?” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own We writers sure like quotes, eh? Tacked up on our bulletin boards,…… Continue reading The good of your writing
The thunder of the ground sea, or what’s under the boat
One of my favorite things about rereading/reteaching stories is that no matter how well I think I know a work, I always unearth new intriguing bits. This past spring when I taught Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I zeroed in on how Shelley describes the breaking up of the frozen northern ocean where Walton and Victor become…… Continue reading The thunder of the ground sea, or what’s under the boat
Unspooling, and the story of now
Of late, I have the word unspooling unspooling in my head. It occurs to me as I type that perhaps this longtime obsessive habit of hearing words, bits of sentences, and lines from stories in my inner ear, is, um, not normal. Is this one of the dangers of reading that “they” warn about? Is…… Continue reading Unspooling, and the story of now
The heart, ‘that bloody motor’
I’ve been wanting to sit down here in Blogsville and compose a new entry to keep my writing engine warm in what has so far been the frozen tundra of 2014, but I’ve been doing the proverbial spinning in my chair. Yesterday I started an entry about time and compression in fiction, which I’m wrestling…… Continue reading The heart, ‘that bloody motor’
Bryn Chancellor 