READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
St. Patrick’s Day with Roddy Doyle
“If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.” – Roddy Doyle
Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl
We’ve got another snowy day today, and I’ve been thinking about how snow is often romanticized. Don’t get me wrong: There is something so satisfying about “tucking in” and feeling unburdened by the rigmarole of daily life. Especially if it’s over a weekend; today is Saturday. Somehow Laura Ingalls Wilder even managed — in the rose-colored, made-for-publishing view of her childhood — to make The Long Winter seem dreamy.
Through the Window
Nearly 10 years ago, I read this: “…writing is a matter of examining the world, reflecting upon it, deducing what you want to say, putting that meaning or message into words whose transparency allows the reader, now gazing through the same window-pane from the same position, to see the world exactly as you have seen it.” – Julian Barnes, Through the Window: Seventeen Essays and a Short Story
What a Reader Wants
“That’s all a reader really wants — to know the author better. Even if it’s a novel, they want to know the author.” – the novelist Cecil Dawkins to Natalie Goldberg.
Libraries are Benevolent
The two books I’ve read by Richard Powers — The Overstory and Bewilderment — are so full of profound nuggets of wisdom about, well, life. And you can probably find many of them aggregated on sites like Goodreads. This one isn’t really “life wisdom,” but it really is a nice way to describe a library, isn’t it?
