Sometimes you read something so profoundly affecting, you want to grab your bull horn. Not having a cosmic bull horn, I give you, deep, dark, droll reader, some thoughts on Sherman Alexie's powerful education essay "Superman and Me." My reading origin story begins in Title I (translate: "girl's-not-getting-it" or IEP before such things were a …
Category: Personal Journey
Fearful, Tearful, Weirdful, and Rise
Fear. I wish I could cut it from my soul with a scissors. I wish I could lay on a comfy couch, talk its existence into oblivion, then charge myself $100/hour. I'd collect my fees and go on a vacation to the beach. I have an active imagination, so I fear things most people haven't …
Is your writing frivolous?
We have not only the "right to write," but the responsibility. What else is so permanent a snapshot of the mind, save writing? However, writing doesn't pay the bills when we start out (and maybe never). Barring lottery winners, one must make a living. The tightrope is to figure out how to make a living …
Getting to the Whole Story: An Example from my Son
School started today, to my son's horror. We're finishing our history curriculum from last year because I went through K-12 never learning anything after WWII because we always ran out of school year before we ran out of boring textbook. A History of US is one of my favorites because it's a comprehensive, source-driven look at …
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Versatile Blogger Award
ver·sa·tile able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities. A fiction writer must be versatile, if only for the toggle between fantasy and reality. I once woke to the reality I was due to teach a class in ten minutes. What's the big deal? I was an hour away from said …
The Art of Running Into Flames
When a writer’s thoughts echo my own so completely, I must share. Writing as a confessional is dear to my heart.
When I think about creativity, or the impulses to create, and how there is a certain bravery or cowardice involved, I think of forest fires. You see, my cousins were fire fighters for the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. I love it when they regale me with stories of their adventures and sometimes these are about disaster relief, like following Hurricane Katrina, and other times they are about fighting large forest fires in Colorado or California. They tell me, “If the wind catches the flames and rushes the fire toward you, you have to decide: are you going to run through the flames?”
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Be a Flasher
Not that kind of flasher, naughty bird. A flash fiction writer. Why should I be a flash fiction writer? You ask. I'm glad you did. Flash fiction forces several wondrous talents upon you: Economy of language. Full-bodied plot in a tiny, weeny package. A stretch into new genres, styles, content.* Opportunity for you to turn …
I Wish I Could Be…
Imagine this. My six-year-old wearing his fuzzy pj's makes this imperious proclamation: "I wish I could be public schooled so I wouldn't have to walk all the way to the kitchen to get my rods." Those rods, to which he referred, were little color-coded blocks that enabled him to learn his fractions and multiplication tables …
Not in Kansas Anymore
I am among the scores descending on Coe Lake to watch the 4th of July fireworks. We squish our blanket in with the sea of others and became part of the throng; the green is absolutely choked with people. The sticky smell of funnel cakes settles like dew upon us. From the pavilion, middle-aged men with …
For my Husband on Father’s Day
Father moment: Bob walks in the door after a ten-hour workday, lunch bag in one hand, mail (bills) in the other, trying to shake the day's garbage from his head and wanting very badly "to get horizontal for a minute." Out of necessity Bob has perfected the power nap. Still, his head doesn't get to …