The last time I got a diploma or education-related certificate in anything was high school, and I don’t recall it being almost as long as my torso. Then again, the Humber program feels bigger, more significant for me than high school did, so maybe it’s appropriate.
I’m a morning writer. The earlier, the better. Before the world has really woken up, and while it’s still quiet and slowly brightening outside. When there are only a few lights on in the building across the street, curtains left open and lamps left on. Hearing the small sounds of the person in the apartment above me starting her day. I lead a pretty quiet life anyway, but there’s something about that small window of
On the false spring day, I walk home after brunch, shedding my scarf, opening my jacket. On car windshields I notice pages placed under windshield wipers. Pages torn from a book. I try to read as I pass. About the Author. A Japanese surname. Across the street a man is walking with a woman, saying, “That and that and that and that.” I watch them for a while, and their strange conversation makes me forget
Winter has traditionally been my best writing season. My brain, which sloshes around sluggishly all summer, wakes up and wants to get to work. However, this winter I seem to still be “recovering” from the intensity of my Humber writing mentorship. Either that, or I’m still shaking off the holiday laziness. Though lately the weather has been almost springlike, I find myself retreating, staying silent and still. Wearing mostly black and grey, apparently: Reading about
The joy of repetition really is in you Read More »
There’s a new entry on Lumisilla mailla, the blog I write with my friend Susanna. I’m really enjoying making this blog with her. It feels like the cardboard “mailboxes” my childhood best friend and I kept on our front porches, and we’d write notes to each other and run across the street and pop them in. Even though Susanna and I talk regularly, there’s something especially sweet about writing a blog together, this transatlantic collaboration.
My Humber writing mentorship is over, and it’s hard to talk about what I’ve learned since May. It’s hard to talk about writing development without sounding foolish. What can I say that doesn’t sound obvious, over-simple? And maybe a little boring? In fact, I rarely talk about it at all, except with other friends who are also writers, who understand how maddening it can be to chase a story, meaning, characters, tie down this shivering
Experience points. Read More »
My oldest friend is visiting home, and we spend the afternoon discovering new pathways in the park, discovering washed-up bones and watching people fish in the river. We follow that river and find a spot to sit, and we sit talking for a very long time, as we tend to do. People walk past us with hiking poles, with dogs. Out of the corner of my eye I track the sun sinking behind the trees.
(I live) by the river. Read More »
I had a bulleted list of highlights written out about my seven-hour day spent at the International Festival of Authors (mostly) with Teri, but for some reason it all seems so personal. I think it has to do with the feeling of being a fan in the way Teri so wonderfully described it. I met my Humber writing mentor, Donna Morrissey, after her interview, and she was so charming and funny and personable and wise, just
It’s a cloudy, dark day today, though warmer than it has been. It’s quiet. Somewhere around 4pm, there was suddenly nothing else I wanted to do than read an old favourite, The Mayor of Casterbridge. At one point in my life I would have called this my favourite book. I don’t know why, but Victorian novels are so cozy and relaxing for me. I don’t want to claim that I’m some great fancy reader of Victorian
Thoughts on reading. Read More »
My husband shared this great NY Times article with me, called The Power of the Particular: My best theory is this: When we are children, we invent these detailed imaginary worlds that the child psychologists call “paracosms.” These landscapes, sometimes complete with imaginary beasts, heroes and laws, help us orient ourselves in reality. They are structured mental communities that help us understand the wider world. We carry this need for paracosms into adulthood. It’s a
