I let myself off the hook with my writing routine and look where it’s gotten me. I’ve started playing video games, the first person shooter kind, and go to bed replaying scenes of me dying or killing other players. I’ve… Read More ›
Creative Nonfiction
The cosmic distance ladder
Morning time in the old German village where we once lived. The narrow stone roads that feel like a labyrinth, more for pedestrians than cars. The sound of tire tread when cars pass slow. Everyone smoking. Past the Italian bakery… Read More ›
This bag is not a toy
It is the best day of my life when I get a call from the editor asking me to report on a town meeting and submit a thousand words. Even though it’s just a weekly it’s my first time published, my name in print.
Letters from former selves
Looking back on your life is like looking out of a plane taking off or touching down. Trying to make out familiar places below, or leave it behind.
November’s treasures
I yo-yo around the yard occupying myself, for the soul needs a reminder that there’s more beyond itself. And if the soul is elastic, will the stretch marks show when all of this is over?
Song for mid-autumn soothing
I had to turn off my notifications and head to the hills for a few hours. I was glad for the smell of wet leaves and patchwork of brown and yellow on the ground, glad for the sweat in my… Read More ›
The rat torture scene reveal
It is the last thing they have to hold on to, perhaps. Winston and his girlfriend have broken from the state and formed a tryst. When they are captured, they’re separated and taken into confinement for weeks, months, possibly years of interrogation and reconditioning.
Lifetime
There is a space between us and the ones we love and I want to understand why we allow that distance. Or talk about what gets in our way of crossing it.
Roll call
I muscled my way through writing as I did with mountaineering, relying more on brute force than actual technique. In mountaineering it nearly got me killed and as a writer it kept me at the junior varsity level of blogger…. Read More ›
Magic, or otherwise
I walked eight miles and didn’t see another soul. Another hundred and I’d cross the Oregon border. I got to the lake, cleared a ledge of snow off by a small stand of trees and pulled out my tent, moving fast to stake it out.
Bill Pearse 