I love music. I love to sing it, play it, compose it. I love to write about it (as I’m doing in The Singing Stick, my novel-in-progress). Most of all, I love to listen to…
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The first lie I can remember telling dates to my first day of kindergarten. The big classroom in our small-town school (long since razed) enchanted me. With a bank of tall windows along one side…
In the hardware store, I select a quart of interior paint from the brands on the shelf. Bright white, for household trim. “My,” the cashier says, as she rings me up, “you’re quite the golden…
This week for Staying Power, I sat down to write one thing, and something totally different came out. (Surprise! Ain’t life grand?) What came out was a poem that imitates “The House That Jack Built,”…
Sometimes “once” just isn’t enough.
Last fall, during a socially distanced writing retreat in Oakwood Lakes State Park, my friend Ruby and I took a short night hike around a wooded peninsula. Without flashlights. Without even a sliver of moon to see by.
This past week, as the leaves began to turn red and gold once again, Ruby and I met up for another writing retreat. This time we camped beside a slough, or big pond, in Lake Herman State Park.
Once, returning from a trip abroad, Jihong brought me the gift of a Russian matryoshka set. At first glance, all you see is a wooden doll, around 7” high. It’s painted to resemble a happy peasant woman, with a city scene on her plump belly.
However, if you lift away the top half of the doll, you find a smaller matryoshka hidden inside—the peasant woman’s daughter. Open that second doll, and you find an even smaller daughter. And then another daughter. Finally, at the center, you come to a baby.
My family has just returned from a long camping vacation around Lake Superior. Our first time there. My goodness, “lake” is too small a word for the great inland sea that the Ojibwe nation calls…
Imagine that you are born into poverty. Imagine that, during your grade school years, a teacher recognizes your artistic talent. Imagine that the teacher enrolls you in a government-funded art class, held weekly at a…
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