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Posts from the ‘Literature and the writing life’ Category

May 9

My wife loves corn_2010_Muse

“Capital-izing: Is Your Town Famous?” in Hothouse

Good news! I’m now a staff writer for Hothouse, an online magazine at Newfound Journal. Exploring the Midwestern United States, I’ve been asked to focus on the arts, however I’d like to interpret them as long as it’s “an inquiry of place” — the journal’s overarching goal. Well, here goes, my first stab at being artsy and Midwestern and place-based, starting with…you guessed it…corn. After all, we’ve got a lot of it and everybody knows it. Let’s shuck off the stereotype and enjoy ourselves: Read more

Apr 14

Cherokee Trail Road 1_9-10_Muse
4 Comments

“The Big Bang” in Poydras Review

Do you have a scar that tells a story? Here’s mine: “a jagged five-inch gash” on the left side of my head.

Read “The Big Bang,” my recent essay in Poydras Review. Below is an excerpt, though please turn to the journal to enjoy the full piece. It may be a short tale, but the words loom long in my memory, starting at five years old. You could say I first wrote them in flesh, using barbed wire instead of a pen. Read more

Mar 8

Jeff, Steve, and Kurt_AEI 1994_Wills

“Manly Labor” in Soundings Review

Many thanks to Soundings Review for publishing my personal essay, “Manly Labor.” You can find the full piece in the recent print issue, Fall/Winter 2012. The journal includes 80 or so pages of poetry and short stories, essays like mine and writing for children and young adults, even interviews that keep it all down to earth. Soundings Review is one of several endeavors led by the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, which offers an MFA in Creative Writing and an annual conference on Washington’s Whidbey Island. Beautiful country, indeed. I once called it home. Read more

Feb 2

camping in NOCA high country_2006_Muse

“Ground Truthing” in Flycatcher: A Journal of Native Imagination

I’m thrilled to publish a new essay in Flycatcher: A Journal of Native Imagination. Below is an excerpt, though please turn to the journal for the entire 5,000 word piece. And while you’re there, check out the whole lineup of poems, stories, essays, and artwork. As editor Christopher Martin notes, “Flycatcher strives to explore what it means — or what it might mean — to be native to this earth and its particular places.” Right on, I say. Keep exploring. Be native! Read more

Jan 10

Early 1900s homesteaders Hazel Tracy and Sadie Cudworth (right) in the upper Skagit Valley. NORTH CASCADES NATIONAL PARK ARCHIVES.

“Sauk Mountain, North Cascades, Washington” in EarthLines

The spray paint surprised me: neon orange slashes across a rocky trail crowded with glacier lilies, the season’s first flowers in the high meadows above of my house. About a half mile from the parking lot, the paint marks the end for a 54-year-old woman shot dead here last August, an incident I’d forgotten until crossing these remnants of forensic analysis. Though it’s been many months, the bright lines and directional arrows still highlight the locations of the killer and the victim, the latter located 50 yards downhill, four switchbacks from the gun. Read more

Oct 20

Sauk Mountain fog_2007_Muse
2 Comments

New essay in EarthLines: “Sauk Mountain, North Cascades, Washington”

From way out on the stormy, stunning northwest coast of Scotland — the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, to be exact — comes the new full-color magazine EarthLines. If you’re familiar with the publication Orion, you’ll have a sense of the quality of this magazine — thought-provoking, gorgeous, engaging, including a lively presence on Facebook, which I highly recommend. Seriously, go there now and hit “Like.” Read more

May 21

Skagit River_2007_Muse
4 Comments

“Skagit River, Washington” in Orion’s The Place Where You Live

Enjoy my short essay, “Skagit River, Washington,” in Orion’s The Place Where You Live. While you’re there, click on the section title and peruse the map for dozens of other essays — stories all over the world. Read more

Jan 21

3 Comments

“We are able to believe that our government is weak…” — John Steinbeck

“We are able to believe that our government is weak, stupid, overbearing, dishonest, and inefficient, and at the same time we are deeply convinced that it is the best government in the world, and we would like to impose it upon everyone else.”

– John Steinbeck, from “Paradox and Dream” (1966)

Dec 6

2 Comments

“It is difficult to get a man to understand…” — Upton Sinclair

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”

– Upton Sinclair

Nov 10

2 Comments

“Tell me to save the world and I will panic.” — David Gessner

“Tell me to save the world and I will panic. Some jobs are simply too big, too daunting. Too much for one individual. But tell me to save a chunk of that world, a river say, and I might just become engaged. Give me something to work at, to work with, outside myself, and I will.”

– David Gessner, from My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism (2011)

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