About my writing:
“I see myself staunching wounds. All the pages of all my books going into a great hole in people and slowing the loss of blood.”
Talking with an old friend about art.  Her philosophy came up, and mine, and my place in the world through art.  That’s what I came up with.  I don’t [...]

Bit of poetry.  Excuse the out-of-syncness.

I’d been recommended John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing several months ago, and had heard rumblings of it before then.  The biggest selling point for me was that it had been described as an ancestor to McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.  I grabbed a copy at Powell’s while I was in Portland and it sat on my shelf until [...]

Here are the highlights of my latest writing playlist, named “Samuel”, after the character over whom my tight-lipped third person limited-omniscient narrat(or)-camera hovers for the latter half of my third novel.  Included in this list, culled from well over one hundred songs, are the powerhouse tracks that really influence me.  I’ll explain why for each.  [...]

To contrast my last post of substance:
Everyone thinks they can write a book.  They can’t.  Everyone thinks they’ve got a story in ‘em that’s worth telling.  They don’t.  Half of the people who’ve even taken steps to become a writer fall into this category.  Probably more than half.  And I don’t just mean get a [...]

“If I had not existed, someone else would have written me…What is important is Hamlet and A Midsummer Nights Dream, not who wrote them, but that somebody did.” ~ William Faulkner
I have a problem with people calling writing anything other than exactly what it is: a person sitting down (or standing, whatever works) and writing [...]

This post will be one in a two or three parter, provided I feel like following through with it, on the capital letter issues of writing.  Truth and big W writers. Maybe a little Beauty thrown in for good measure.
Being in an MFA program, surrounded by writers, some of us are bound to get a [...]

I love the hell out of this song.  The voice just barely holding onto its hushed tone.  You can hear Beam biting on the end of every word.  I picture teeth chopping at the microphone.  I think I’m exaggerating a bit, but when I sing it I can’t help but sing it loud.
Anyway.  That song [...]