I haven’t written for a week till now. Nothing came to mind worth writing: no story to tell or coerce. I spent two days hiding out in a borrowed copy of the computer game, Dragon Age (not an entirely terrible place to hide). I mowed the lawn (usually, a satisfying task–we have terrain and, in [...]

Sometimes solutions to writing problems show up unexpectedly. I was reading a chapter in Half The Sky (unless you’re a caveman, read Half The Sky–now–or especially if you’re a caveman, first world or otherwise) about sex trafficking in the slums of Nagpur, where members of the Dalit (Untouchable) class, especially women, have almost no social [...]

In the mornings, as I walk from the train to the office, I watch other people in transition: stepping into or out of buildings or the streetcar, squatting with their possessions in doorways, warming their hands with coffee or asking for change or public solitude. I wonder what they looked like when they were younger, [...]

Lately, when I want writing inspiration, I find Sherman Alexie.
When I need grounding, I read anything Molly Gloss.
When I want to know whether I’ll be writing when I’m in my 70’s, I read my friend Tony Wolk. I also read his friend, Ursula, who is now 80, but daunting with her bold silver litcrit yin [...]

I often see tweets from an outstanding local writer on how slow she is–her average daily output being about 300 words. I suspect that those are 300 carefully chosen words resulting in fairly polished text, not 300 words blurted onto a page (or e-mail or blog, etc.). But even 300 words ill chosen are better [...]