Category: Creative Nonfiction

I carry fragments of lines in my mind for days or weeks before writing them down. Sometimes the line arrives whole, sometimes only as rhythm. I try to follow the sound first and the meaning later. Language, like water, tends to find its own level if you give it enough patience.

The movie showed both your delight and your weariness. The delight showed most when you were training your dog Rothko, methodically rewarding him and praising him when he accomplished his tricks.

This movie could be a turning point for Hollywood’s writers if the modern North American audience is ready to face a strong leading lady who simultaneously holds such a strong contradiction within her.

I write with the tips of my fingers, extended through each digit from crackling knuckle, out from the wrist and down from the elbow, the shoulder, the neck and then the rotting brain, the brain, the mysterious box of rain that I can’t explain further.

I hit upon the idea, derived from a phrase of James Merrill's, that I should pay attention to those writers that had the greatest deposits in their word banks.