poetry wednesday : cusp
Cusp by Erin Coughlin Hollowell Puzzle of bones, try to take time out of a watch, stop sundown. It’s all the same weave, all warm from the compost, erasing the written page to blankness. In the morning, the shadow of a hawk split the yard. Inside your ear, mother’s voice— …
book stack tuesday : the art of asking
My head nodded in recognition throughout this book. So far, I’ve read it twice. There is more to say, but I’ll start here: I’ve had some experience with asking*, which taught me a lot about generosity, and giving, and community, and vulnerability, and expectation, and judgment. So I was interested …
balance your power
I was in my early 20s, in graduate school studying literature (mainly American) and art history (mainly the figure of the artist in fiction). There’s a huge employment market for people who have studied the figure of the artist in fiction, of course. My thesis was entitled “The Solids of …
about strong offers
I am pleased to be part of the Storytellers Summit, which has been taking place this week featuring amazing folks talking about story, in all its forms. Today (Saturday, Jan 24th), I’ll be at the Summit talking about making strong offers. I hope you’ll join in for this final day …
strong offer friday
I think it is important to make strong offers that are not attached either to people responding well or poorly to them. It’s just as easy to be swayed by positive response as it is by negative. Either one may take you off your strongest intention by influencing your next …
thinking thursday
mind I love a good documentary. Let’s all watch these and then talk about them. And then we can watch these and talk about them. You might find this Aspie quiz of interest. Ram Dass on navigating the mind fields: “When I started to dive deeper into my being, I …
poetry wednesday : what came to me
What Came to Me by Jane Kenyon, 1947 – 1995 I took the last dusty piece of china out of the barrel. It was your gravy boat, with a hard, brown drop of gravy still on the porcelain lip. I grieved for you then as I never had before.
book stack tuesday : nerdy, shy, and socially inappropriate
One day as I sat in Malaprop’s bookshop in downtown Asheville, NC, I saw a man fall into the street and hit his head on the curb. I ran out to see if I could help, surprised at the people looking at him but not moving to help him. As …
live a story of wholeness
She came into the world quickly. And loudly. She was a screamer from the beginning. Even our neighbors commented on the decibel level. Everything set her off—invisible things, hunger, crowds, things we could not know. We worried when she got old enough to scream, “Help me, help me,” that people …
strong offer friday
What has taken the place of your work has become your work. So if worrying about what people are saying about your work takes up most of your time, then that has become your work. If making excuses for why you don’t have time to write occupies your days, then …
