Author Archives

Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

• Listening to the likes

  By Bill Pearse on February 28, 2013 • ( 10 )

  If you want to write for others, it’s important they like what you write. You can argue they may not know what they like, or you can lead them somewhere new, but in the end, the customer is always right,… Read More ›

• Bad Jobs Make Good Stories

  By Bill Pearse on February 27, 2013 • ( 2 )

  The Green Study issued a writing challenge this week, to blog about the worst job you ever had. This is my warm-up. The problem is, for any bad job I’ve had, I got something good out of it. I got… Read More ›

• Purpose

  By Bill Pearse on February 26, 2013 • ( 5 )

  Charlotte loses her dollar from the tooth fairy, but it takes too long to look for it, and we give up. The woman outside the supermarket is selling newspapers for the homeless, and I buy one. She compliments Charlotte’s sweater,… Read More ›

• Invocation

  By Bill Pearse on February 25, 2013 • ( 1 )

  I gave up looking for Emmett’s body and made my way back up the hillside, to the house. The dog had escaped the Invisible Fence, through the snow, without a trace of his footprints, just vanished. It was January, 1998:… Read More ›

• Getting out of the labyrinth: Trying to finish Portrait so I can get on with my life

  By Bill Pearse on February 24, 2013 • ( 6 )

  

  I thought it would be a good idea to do this again, to read James Joyces’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But instead, I’ve gotten wrapped around the axle with the author, his conflicts with the… Read More ›

• Starbucks and the plastic valve

  By Bill Pearse on February 23, 2013 • ( 5 )

  The plastic valve is called FlavorLock™. It’s a barely noticeable, plastic disc inside a bag of coffee that lets aromatic gasses out, but prevents oxygen from getting in. I can’t figure out who invented the technology, but it changed everything… Read More ›

• Can you be interesting every day?

  By Bill Pearse on February 22, 2013 • ( 3 )

  

  I can’t be anything every day, let alone interesting. But it’s a good challenge: can I devote 15 minutes a day to record something interesting about my life? Is there something worth sharing, every day? I came to this after… Read More ›

• Leaning House of God (Trees Bend to the Light)

  By Bill Pearse on February 21, 2013 • ( 0 )

  

  Some species require the shock of sudden darkness to go into bloom. Some don’t like direct sun. I feed my orchids ice cubes each week, to regulate their intake. They look dead certain times of the year, then bounce back… Read More ›

• Earthquake

  By Bill Pearse on February 20, 2013 • ( 8 )

  A guy shouted at us, Get away from the building! My boss was pale white and crying, all the blood drawn out of her face. Doris, my colleague, looked like she was 10 years old, as if the fear of… Read More ›

• Prism

  By Bill Pearse on February 19, 2013 • ( 1 )

  The prism is a piece of cut crystal hung in my window. We bought it at the Jersey shore in the late 70s when I was a little boy. I asked my dad for it when I was going off… Read More ›