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.
Love and Trouble, Monsters, House Lessons, The American Idea of Home
I’ve been meaning to do a roundup of nonfiction I’ve read in the last few months. Some of these books were read with the intent of observing format and style for my own writing, but the subject matter is fascinating too. So, win-win. (I mean, could you have an interestingly written book about something boring? Of course. But it wouldn’t come across as boring. Therein lies the quandary…)
Who’s a Critic?
Latest pet interest = criticism. As in literary criticism, not me rolling my eyes at that weird thing you said. (Am I projecting on myself??) It started with me re-discovering the work of Stanley Fish, whose book Is There a Text in this Class? helped provide the framework for my masters thesis so long ago. I then read Claire Dederer’s much-lauded Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, an exploration of how to reconcile liking good art created by people who have done really not-good things (i.e. Woody Allen) that partly — and perceptively — shifts into how Dederer approaches her career as a critic. (In a nutshell, “…a never-ending flow of judgement, which nestles together with subjectivity.”)
