When I was starting out as a short story writer –and for longer after I started than I am proud to admit– I thought my stories should grow organically as I wrote them, that they should be spontaneous things unexpected even to myself. Writing without a plan is so prevalent Read more…
I really, really love Halloween. As a kid who didn’t get to eat much candy the rest of the year, it was like… hedonism itself. I would panic and fuss about costumes, and made myself some pretty terrible ones. Yes, I was that teenager wearing face paint and an inner Read more…
There are topics you can’t help but return to, to grind your mind against day and night like a worry stone. At what point are you annoying not just yourself but your audience? I think this as a friend wryly tells me I don’t have “range” that I have “never Read more…
Volunteering. When I see a call for volunteers, there’s a near physical pain if I don’t answer it. Why is that? Why do I feel like a rude bastard if I don’t agree to do EVERYTHING? I’m not even just talking about Official Volunteer Positions. I used to jump up Read more…
When I was an unpublished, aspiring writer, oh lo those 15 years ago, I was soaking in desperation. I thought-screamed, “What do you want from me?!” over every rejection letter. If they’d only say, I could write it! I tried to come up with the Cool New Concept that would Read more…
Growing up poor, I knew a lot about bitterness. I was bitter that other kids got to go on vacations, got to have cable TV, got air conditioning and dinner served every night. Mine was the pure bitterness of a child, the black-and-white unfairness of a melodrama heroine. And my Read more…
I was in second grade, I’m pretty sure, but maybe first. That age where, every week, we had to fold a piece of paper in half, lengthwise, and number ten lines for our spelling test. The teacher would pace sedately down the aisles between desks, watching us bent dutifully with Read more…