As a writer I think about words in all their nuance, music, use and misuse. I submit work in the hope of having it published. In this context, submission is a good thing. No pressure, except what I put on myself in terms of deadlines, not to mention the emotional underpinnings of rejection vs. … [Read more...] about Submit Surrender Retreat: my corona diaries
Gratitude
In an essay by Joan Didion that I go back to again and again, she writes: “there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.” Takes a certain flair with … [Read more...] about Gratitude
Ain’t too proud to beg
I'm stretched out in bed, 9:30 p.m., a weeknight. A little early for me but it's the stretching out that I crave. To lie back, my neck propped against a trio of pillows. Recline. A word that hums, not so much directive as invitation: sink back. Let the shoulders relax, show the heart how … [Read more...] about Ain’t too proud to beg
The Motherless Child
In the early months following the attacks on The Satanic Verses and the ensuing fatwa, Salman Rushdie finds himself questioning the very thing that had been one of his greatest joys, namely, being a writer. As he tells it in his chronicle of that extraordinary time, Joseph Anton, “If one spent five … [Read more...] about The Motherless Child