worldwright

Moving Day

2010-09-03T10:09:00.002-04:00

Time to simplify.I've created a new author webpage in advance of the publication of Blood Clay - now rescheduled to early 2011 - and will be blogging at that location.If you've stopped by Worldwright now and again, thank you.I hope you will visit at the new "house" or see me on Facebook.

Tar, gravel, sand, dirt, mud

2010-08-10T13:40:00.004-04:00

"Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue." Wall Street JournalWe've been a nation of road-builders, to the point that the asphalt and concrete have overwhelmed our cities - cutting off neighborhoods, fostering big

Recovery

2010-07-25T08:37:00.003-04:00

I just finished recovering the scattered chapters of Survivors, my novel of hard times in the early 70s, for ebook publication on Amazon.I had a file on my computer that purported to be the "complete" mss, but as I went through tweaking and editing, I found several sections mysteriously missing.One I could account for - a chapter that I had excerpted for a newspaper publication - though why I

End of the World and Welcome to it

2010-07-08T13:28:00.002-04:00

Found this nifty little wiki - if you're partial to apocalypse, take a look at this growing list of ways the world will end.Disclaimer: my own pastoral post-apocalypse appears here, Neena Gathering, published under my previous moniker of Valerie Nieman Colander.The wiki is the work of a blogger and joins the various listings of The End of Things. Since this is a wiki, you can play, too.

Ditch Lilies

2010-06-26T10:03:00.002-04:00

It's daylily season.I've been tagging them as they bloom, trying to make sense of the patchwork of varieties given by family and friends, found here, saved from a former home, moved around the yard, purchased from plant sales or the Clearance table at Lowe's (I'm always trying to save something!)I know the names of only one or two. Each plant has a story - this is the one about the ditch lilies.A

The Story that Launched Stories

2010-06-12T10:39:00.004-04:00

Legacies: An Introduction to “The Calf’s First Drinking Lesson” I am a writer today, perhaps because of red shoes and Little Golden Books, but mostly because of the story about the accompanying story. My father did not go to college, despite evident talent – circumstances of war, class, family, region. But his love of literature was demonstrated to me regularly by his impromptu recitations from

Cleaning Tools

2010-06-01T16:51:00.003-04:00

I spent a good part of the day cleaning rust off some valued tools.This morning, I reviewed early chapters and started writing again on "the marina novel" that has been slowly gestating while I worked on old novels and new poems and on life in general. The narrator's voice came back readily, though I'd been astray in revisions on Blood,Clay and retyping parts of Survivors to put up as an

Telling the tales

2010-04-15T11:20:00.003-04:00

Working Lives Series.They had me at the title. Before becoming an academic, I was a factory worker, doughnut maker, waitress. I have made hay and made jelly, raised cattle and berries, cut wood, doctored sick dogs, instructed a first-time hunter on how to go about gutting the deer he'd downed. My first building project was a dam across an unnamed creek in our "gully," but after that I built fence

West Virginia - a miner's life

2010-04-09T10:23:00.002-04:00

This poem was written in the early 1990s, when I was a reporter at a newspaper in a small West Virginia town. I’d covered a handful of murders, a lot of shootings and stabbings, a few suicides – the backdrop for them all, a region where two of the nation’s worst mine disasters were the history highlights and where most of the industry had dried up and disappeared. The black granite references a

A certain slant of light

2010-03-27T18:03:00.005-04:00

Thursday night, poetry group.As always, we range rather widely in our discussions - Sarah finding delicious tidbits from the worlds of science, Mark providing apt lines from his hundreds of memorized poems, and me providing folklore and Appalachian woodcraft.As we concluded our discussions of our poems, we started to discuss science fiction. Mark and I shared our list of formative books - Dune,

Small Salvage

2010-03-14T11:14:00.005-04:00

This morning, I picked a flowering branch from the camellia (needs pruning) and two from the forsythia (always need pruning) - but there is one spring flower that won't be touched.The trout lily (seen here in a photo from the Carrboro Citizen) or dog-tooth violet or fawn lily or adder's tongue - that last the name I learned as a child in western New York - is a spring ephemeral, a small bulb that

The Voice

2010-02-26T13:44:00.002-05:00

I should be working on the novel, the one I'm excited about, that has accumulated chapters and files of research and a story line and characters like Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph who sometimes peer out at me from crowds, demanding that I return. My narrator, Maggie, has a strong voice.But this other voice has been demanding its say.The Leopard Lady began talking in a patois of Appalachian, Shakespearean

Near encounters with Lucille Clifton, RIP

2010-02-14T12:27:00.002-05:00

Lucille Clifton has died, bringing an end to a powerful, funny, endearing, enduring poetic voice.I never had the chance to meet her, but came close.She was born in western New York State, as was I, growing up in the deep cold of the Buffalo region.She graduated from Fredonia State University, where my great-uncle designed some of the classroom buildings.And in the 1990s, when I was one

Remembering Snow

2010-01-30T10:12:00.002-05:00

This morning the lawn merges into the street, everything white until the pond that shows, steel-colored, between the neighbors' trees. The sleet has arrived and pecks at the north-facing window. We are not snow-bound, in any sense, but the old poem says itself in memory:Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding

Name game

2010-01-24T16:03:00.002-05:00

Ah, it begins.After the writing, the editing, the rewriting.The nervous fits. The periods of elation and depression.The novel is finished. Well, has been for some time. But the submitting, the revisions, the acceptance!!And now it really is going to come out later this year - but the title.The dratted title.I'm no good at this name game. I stuck "Feral" on the MSS although I knew it sounded more

Herbal tea and wisdom

2010-01-15T07:19:00.002-05:00

Up early (at 4 a.m., though just now on the computer) and energized to write - last night was the monthly "micro-writers group" meeting - myself, the erudite Mark Smith-Soto, and the Lannan Award-winning Sarah Lindsay (congrats much in order). Over Wild Berry Zinger and Petit Beurre cookies shattered by transatlantic luggage handling, we wrestled with our words. Mark had a stunning rewrite of a

Good start to the New Year

2010-01-09T10:48:00.002-05:00

Seems like most people I talk with were pleased to see 2009 in the rearview mirror. It was a rough year, nationally, locally, personally.This fresh New Year has brought better health, more energy, and a renewed commitment to writing. I'm going to become a litmag editor once again, after a long hiatus from Kestrel, but more about that in a few weeks. It's an exciting project.And I've been sending

Shout Outs to Poets!

2009-12-30T16:51:00.003-05:00

Two great poets and great friends closed the year on a high note:Susan Meyers was selected for the SC Parks 2010 Artist-in-Residence program. She will be at Oconee State Park, Mountain Rest, the third week in May. "After living in a cabin there for the week--exploring the park and spending time writing about its flora and fauna--I'll turn in a framed poem to be hung somewhere in one of the cabins

Sharing Paris

2009-12-30T11:41:00.002-05:00

Jack and I spent a cold week in Paris as our mutual anniversary/Christmas present, and did things a little differently this time. Instead of renting a hotel room, we took an apartment through a rental firm called Vacation in Paris, selecting an area unfrequented by tourists.Our third-floor apartment (second floor in France) was just off Rue Montorgeuil, a market street where I'd shopped and

I'm back

2009-12-20T10:51:00.000-05:00

One thing I've discovered is that the Internet is like an old garden - you can walk away, but the volunteer seedlings will keep coming up and the rows you planted will keep their shape for a long time. The world of Google has a long memory...So after being away from Worldwright for a long time, I've come back to till the soil.This morning, I'm watching the snow melt and struggling with a sonnet (

One blog at a time

2007-08-05T10:40:00.001-04:00

I'm not the world's best blogger - and so rather than divide my meager energies, I'm consolidating on MySpace.If you've visited, thanks for reading - if you want to find my new home, it's at http://www.myspace.com/valerienieman

Poem for July

2007-07-01T18:02:00.000-04:00

Here's a poem for July - my birth month, month of firecrackers and fireworks, drought and the hypnotic sound of the cicadas.LintThe lawn gathers mortality in July –today, a shrew killed in the midst of its own small predations,long nose still as a bluebottle investigates.Also bird feathers,the molt strewing them like the burstof a dark pillow,most being starling, from the flocksthat rustle in the

Missing

2007-06-19T09:30:00.000-04:00

Susan Meyers, the wonderful poet from South Carolina, was lamenting the loss of songbirds around her home - bluebirds especially. My parents in Southport watch their bluebird boxes, busy two years ago, sit idle. Even the raucous mobbing of crows seems absent. There are a lot of reasons for the absences. Land clearing in Central and South America where the passerines winter. Habitat loss to

Nice surprises

2007-06-10T13:59:00.000-04:00

Hey, doing a search through the Net yields some nice surprises.Cliff Garstang, an accomplished fictionista from Queens U, posted a nice comment about Wake Wake Wake on his blog, Perpetual Folly.Thanks, Cliff!

Revisiting the Apocalypse

2007-05-13T14:50:00.001-04:00

Those of us who grew up with the daily concept of the Apocalpyse (and have the gray hairs to prove it) will appreciate this short film. I'm cadging the link from Pinckney Benedict - it deserves passing along. 23 Skidoo ...I'm interested to see what the Apocalypse looks like now. The Green Mountains Review has a special issue of contemporary end-of-the-world fiction coming out this year. I have

Get LIT! parties - what a hoot!

2007-05-06T08:25:00.000-04:00

Well, I did it.You probably did it, too.Hosted one of those parties to sell things to your friends and patient relatives - Avon, Pampered Chef, etc.And of course you've gone to these parties and bought things you really didn't need ... I have this great pizza stone but I never make pizza.So check out what Press53 is doing. Here's an excerpt from Sheryl Monks' recent MySpace post about the Get LIT

Me and the kids

2007-03-28T18:42:00.000-04:00

Some things you just don't expect in your life.Like finding myself in front of a microphone on Radio Disney.You have to understand, I was a tomboy and a loner and never expected to have children. That didn't stop me from making taffy with the neighbor kids, a 30-something big kid making a mess as we pulled the sticky candy into shape. Or enjoying the company of my nephew, or others along the

Voice over: Blackbird

2007-03-02T15:53:00.000-05:00

The AWP conference is a massive gathering of the literary tribes - this year at the Hilton in downtown Atlanta.I've loaded my ears with discussions and readings, my suitcase with books and journals to share with students.And something special - I stopped by the Blackbird booth at the book fair to say hello and thanks again for using one of my poems. The staffers said, why don't you record the

Opening a window

2007-02-28T05:44:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it just takes opening a window.Researchers in Peru found that opening hospital windows worked better than modern ventilation systems at preventing the spread of airborne infections. "Opening windows and doors maximizes natural ventilation so that the risk of airborne contagion is much lower than with costly, maintenance-requiring mechanical ventilation systems," wrote Rod Escombe of

Reading Jan. 12

2007-01-02T13:24:00.000-05:00

MySpace

2006-12-19T17:15:00.000-05:00

After some urging by my friends at Press53, I've plunged into MySpace - much like stepping into the Atlantic Ocean, if I just concentrate on the immediate area it's not so intimidating.

Five stitches

2006-12-15T18:23:00.000-05:00

It was meant to be a great day on the water for my parents, a December outing to take advantage of fair weather.We pulled High Cotton to Southport, planning a sail to Bald Head Island and lunch there.Remember the ditty about the "three-hour cruise?"The disaster happened before we got into the water, however. In the course of rigging the boat, I lost concentration for a second and stepped

Christmas carol

2006-12-08T06:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, so it's four ships - if you look closely - but you have to love the Beneteau showing her skirts.We took this shot at Smith Mountain Lake, during a PHRF Regatta.

Wintering

2006-12-03T17:51:00.001-05:00

This past week has been a blur of activity, from writing the final lectures for classes to pulling the boat for its inaugural journey to saltwater.Classes get smaller this time of year - the students are often distracted but some seniors are very well dressed as they move through mock interviews and real ones in preparation for December graduation. On Thursday I concluded my first Humanities

Dawn Song

2006-11-13T07:00:00.000-05:00

You know the soundtrack.Sure, you can hear it, looking at this photo - that same lilting melody used over and over to announce dawn in the Warner Brothers cartoons. We didn't know then that it was real music - the "Morning Melody" was sister to the dwarf-march of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and all of those tunes were far from looney.We get up early at the lake. 5 a.m., usually. Early

A Google Earth view: Mountaintop removal

2006-11-06T06:11:00.000-05:00

People who live in the coal mining regions of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky know about mountaintop removal.It's the easy way to get coal. Instead of tunneling under the surface, or stripping away the overburden along the mountain contours, you just blast off the entire peak, dump it in the valleys, remove the coal and leave a nice flat top covered with quick-growing grass and trees.That's "

Blogging and Blackbird on a full moon night

2006-11-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

Spent a nice afternoon at Old Salem with folks from Press 53 - Sheryl Monks, Kevin Morgan Watson and Joe Mills. We read, and tasted the cider and Moravian sugar cake, and chatted about all sorts of things - including blogging and why we didn't do it nearly enough.So tonight I'm catching up a bit. It's been a busy month, with readings to do for Wake Wake Wake and sailboat races to run. Jack and I

Poet of the Week

2006-10-23T14:08:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's not like being Super Bowl MVP but pretty nice for a minor poet - I'm joining Joe Mills as the North Carolina Arts Council Poet of the Week this week. If you'd like to stop by the link is here.It's been a fun time this fall with Wake Wake Wake. Really enjoyed a group reading at Raylen Vineyards over near Mocksville. Click here for some photos. Great folks, and a lovely setting. While the

N.C. A&T Undergraduate Creative Writing Program

2006-09-19T17:10:00.000-04:00

Another creative writing program - maybe you're thinking, just what the world needs.Yes, it does. North Carolina A&T State University, where I teach, will now have a creative writing concentration in English, just approved along with one in African-American Literature.A&T is an HBCU - for folks outside the academic world, Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It has a long tradition of

Marks on paper

2006-09-13T07:37:00.000-04:00

It started with that guy in ancient Sumer - the one who ticked off the shipments of wine and oil with marks pressed into clay. Great idea!The marks turned into letters, language, and eventually Gilgamesh.And scribes are still in demand.I spent most of my career as a journalist, making marks on paper and then turning those notes, often as cryptic as cuneiform, into news articles. Now I'm a

"Ring of Bright Water"

2006-08-14T06:30:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, I read books about animals. Horses, dogs, ocelots. Sentimental novels like "Black Beauty." My father's books on trapping techniques. And a book about otters."Ring of Bright Water" was the story of a man and wild otters on the coast of Scotland. It's still around in book form, though of course a movie has been made - on a quick search I learned that there are follow-ups to the

Sightings

2006-08-09T05:36:00.000-04:00

The white deer stood between the trees and the water. It was the most spectacular sighting last weekend at the lake, a weekend that featured our first two sails and a deepening love affair with High Cotton.Runners-up? A flotilla of barn swallows each morning, turning the air like windsurfers as they worked the obstacle course of masts.An 18-inch bass that finned just a couple of feet from the

A Book for a Soldier

2006-07-31T07:13:00.000-04:00

Lots of news this weekend, from High Cotton splashing at Lake Kerr to good news from AWP - more about those later - but wanted to pass on word about a new program at Press53. Called Buy a Book for a Soldier, the program offers press titles at a 25 percent discount and free shipping to our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.A book from home can be as welcome as a carton of cookies, and sure

Going Home

2006-07-27T08:52:00.000-04:00

I'm taking my News Writing class to the News & Record today. It's a homecoming of sorts - I worked as an editor there from 1997 to 2004, good years, growth years as I broke the shell of a failed marriage and a constricting job. New state, new job at a larger newspaper, eventually a return to college. As I stood at my closet, trying to figure out what to wear (on another 90-degree, humid day) it

Editors, LAs and other mythical creatures

2006-07-16T08:46:00.000-04:00

I just added a link at the left to Evil Editor, discovered via Miss Snark. Both well worth the reading if you're convinced you MUST do this writing thing. The Evil Editor offers "plot summaries" and terrible query letters restructured/reimagined. It's no easy thing to distill the plot of your novel to a paragraph or two, enticing the agent or editor without boring, your tone neither boasting nor

An expandable sort of sport

2006-07-14T18:35:00.000-04:00

The final paperwork is criss-crossing the country, courtesy of overnight delivery services, and it looks like High Cotton will be coming down off the cradle and headed back to the water in a week or two.Dave and Co. at American Marine are going to repaint the bottom and install some instruments that were still in the boxes. (Hint: the insurance company will knock off some premium for a depth

Hunter 240 on the way

2006-07-01T07:51:00.000-04:00

Well, we did it.Ran up to Bristol, Tenn., yesterday to pick up a 2002 Ford Explorer. It's forest green and in nice shape (we believe) - not too big as SUVs go, but with a V-8 and a towing package. I was kinda hoping for a Prius, but a Prius won't tow the other part of this equation. We will be getting that Hunter 240 we saw at American Marine.The boat (we're thinking about names - High Cotton

An interior ocean

2006-06-25T08:05:00.000-04:00

We went boat-looking Saturday at American Marine in Zebulon.Yes, Zebulon, North Carolina.You're driving along old route 264 and look to the right through the pine trees - masts everywhere, and white-hulled sailboats from 14 feet to 40 feet. This in the middle of cotton country, where you've left Raleigh's madness behind for fields tended by John Deere tractors.Getting off the highway, you double

Bicentennial Gardens

2006-06-22T12:43:00.000-04:00

We took a walk this morning in Bicentennial Gardens, before the day heated up too much. "Turbo" likes the grass cool and damp with dew or sprinkler water.Greensboro is fortunate to have a series of public gardens, from the European-style manicured beds of the Bicentennial Gardens to the long paths of the Arboretum to the hills and waterways of the Bog Garden. I particularly like the Bicentennial

Under pressure

2006-06-14T07:45:00.000-04:00

Just received our assignments for the big sailing race this weekend at Kerr Lake. Jack and I are newbies at working race committee - he's done it once, I've done it never - and I'll be handling the signal flags! I hope the gods of the semaphores will go easy on me.This is the Governor's Cup and they are expecting 125 boats or more. It should be a real sight.This has been a busy week. Kevin tells

Proof

2006-06-07T19:44:00.000-04:00

"Your proof arrived last night and I’ve looked it over and think it looks fantastic."For a writer, that's the crop coming in - the ship reaching port - the flag planted atop the peak.The book has moved from a collection of pages out of the home printer to a bound group of typeset pages, between covers. Kevin at Press 53 holds it in his hands, and wants to pass it to me, for proofing.

Mayor's Cup Regatta in the books!

2006-06-05T07:24:00.000-04:00

The Mayor's Cup Regatta is in the books!It was an experience, running a sailing race when I just learned to sail last August. My experience is minuscule and my knowledge of the sport even less - but when the Lake Townsend Yacht Club asked if I would be the chairperson, I said yes.Glad I did. It was great fun to meet so many sailors, from across North Carolina and reaching into Virginia. We had

Gardens and mortality

2006-05-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

Just finished watering the plants, the sky again hard blue and not yielding a thing. The snow I grew up with ... and the mists and damps of the West Virginia mountains ... didn't prepare me for Piedmont summers when the red clay turns itself into bricks. So I water, and weed, and prop. Jack doesn't like floppy plants (read: wildlings or close to wild) so I keep having to offer excuses for the

Waiting for the mail

2006-05-22T15:43:00.000-04:00

I may be one of the last folks who actually wait on the mail. Wait for the mail. Desire it to arrive, which at our house comes with the alarm barking of Turbo, our dappled dachshund and general factotum. Today the mail brought Susan Meyers' new book, Keep and Give Away, with three bright apples on the cover waiting to be awarded as prizes. Susan is a fellow Queens University graduate, although I

Best books

2006-05-11T07:38:00.001-04:00

The May 21 issue of the New York Times Book Review will feature a list of the best American fiction of the last 25 years. The list itself, as well as the names of the judges, were posted today on the websiteThe list of judges was long, impressive, and diverse, including writers and critics, men and women, popular and experimental, old lions and young. The list of winning works, however, was

The best ten-buck dinner in Grand Case

2006-05-08T17:28:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a new novel, digging into the notes I made last spring at St. Martin for a crucial chapter. The pictures still vibrate in orange, magenta and turquoise, whether opening on the computer screen or in my thoughts, but tell you the truth, what comes back the clearest is the scent of barbecure smoke from the lolos in the center of Grand Case.Fish, shrimp, chicken - the aromas blew up

North Carolina poets

2006-04-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

If you'd like to see a "sampler" of North Carolina poetry, check out The Pedestal Magazine. The current issue features more than a dozen poets - Sarah Lindsay, Fred Chappell, Heather Ross Miller. I have a poem there, too, and am pleased to be in such great and varied company.I noted a lot of Greensboro connections in that group. We have such a rich tradition here, including the latest initiative

Blue Peninsula

2006-04-16T15:19:00.000-04:00

There is no assuaging the pain of loss, but poetry can help. Sometimes it can be the absolute necessity.Madge McKeithen, also a Queens MFAer, has a new book out - BLUE PENINSULA. She seeks perspective if not always solace through the poems and lyrics of others - reading and reflecting as her son is attacked by an unknown ailment.I liked what Billy Collins had to say: "A sequence of meditations

Wood, bronze, words: Writing in the Mattye Reed African Heritage Collection

2006-04-14T11:03:00.000-04:00

The Thursday before a Friday holiday is often not the best time to plan an expedition across campus for a 2 p.m. class. Nevertheless, the Fiction Writing class gathered by bits and pieces (it's a long, long walk!) to view art in the University Galleries and write in response.Ekphrasis is an ancient tradition, often identified with the Romantics but springing from classical tradition. We discussed

Books, books, books

2006-04-02T13:40:00.000-04:00

April is by far the cruellest month when it comes to books, writers and such - at least in North Carolina.Poetry GSO again has a full schedule of poetry events, highlighted by poet Luis Rodriguez on April 9. Click for a complete schedule. I'll be reading in the coffee house on April 29.Over in Durham, the 2006 North Carolina Festival of the Book runs from April 24-30, with appearances by Barbara

O.Henry, Austin, Greensboro

2006-03-23T06:56:00.000-05:00

The Austin Hilton is just across the street from the house where O.Henry lived, a mustard-yellow cottage distinguished only by its eccentric survival in the middle of massive hotel construction to house visitors to Austin's SXSW and Sixth Street and Longhorns games.I don't know how many of the thousands of writers at the Associated Writing Programs Conference (earlier this month in Austin) found

Pretty things

2006-03-17T06:54:00.000-05:00

The past two weeks have been busy with all manner of pretty things - from the words of Donald Hall and Jane Hirschfeld at AWP to the peculiarities of typography for Wake Wake Wake.AWP was a great event - my first time in Texas. I hadn't been to one of these in many years and the practice of academic writing has certainly expanded. One panelist said there are now over 700 writing programs at

News!

2006-02-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

I've been away a while - the 2006 HBCU National Newspaper Conference at N.C. A&T was a massive undertaking. We had a three-day national event with some 80 presenters, all of whom volunteered to come out and help young journalists with their careers. But arranging for speakers, panelists, rooms, meals and activities for 162 students plus advisers and professionals took a big chunk out of my life

Collateral Damage

2006-01-05T18:14:00.000-05:00

The initial tragedy at the Sago Mine has given way to analysis of what happened and why. A picture emerges of this place and this life - part of the national consciousness for a little while, before the camera crews move on. This poem was written in the early 1990s, when I was a reporter at a newspaper in a small West Virginia mining town. I’d covered a handful of murders, a lot of

Hard work in a dark place

2006-01-05T06:26:00.000-05:00

Did the men think the mine was unsafe?A reporter asked that question of a family member outside the Sago Mine in West Virginia. No, came the response, but slowly. They knew there were problems.Miners know what's going on - they don't need an official report to be aware of gas problems, dust problems, machinery problems. We'll hear more about all those in the days ahead, (see this overview from

West Virginia miners

2006-01-02T19:51:00.000-05:00

Their memorials are seldom more than granite stones in the local graveyard, a name, dates, a death anonymous among those more usually suffered from heart attacks or penumonia.Coal miners fight a long war of attrition, mostly silently, to help provide the electric power we take for granted. Some miners die. Many are injured, or fatally wounded in their lungs by a career of breathing powdered

Toy Boat

2005-12-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

We're sailing along the middle bookshelf, making fair for the dictionary with a postage-stamp sail flying astern. Jack and I, or at least our photo, are nestled between the masts.Of all the Christmas gifts opened, this one holds a special place.My father has a downsized workshop behind his home, a shed where his reduced collection of tools, his fishing gear and gardening materials and beloved

Remembering to Walk

2005-12-23T18:10:00.000-05:00

It's the fear of falling that gets you.The fear that the ground won't be solid, that your feet will slide, your knees buckle.It keeps you sitting down, maybe lying down.Metaphorically.I've been hunting around the outside of a new novel for some time. The plot arc is there, the characters, but it just wouldn't start.Oh, yeah, I've been busy with a new job. With planning two major conferences. With

All that glitters?

2005-12-17T15:49:00.000-05:00

Hey, a comment! Not so often seen outside the political blogs. I think the one to my previous post may have wandered in from that region.I enjoy sharing travel stories with other people. Must be because I didn't get travel much until I was past 40. Jack and I (we were on our honeymoon in 2003) choose a nice destination to visit once a year rather than spending on a big house or an SUV. But any

A different kind of Christmas

2005-12-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

I was waiting on lunch at a booth in the Christmas market at Monte Carlo - cream of asparagus soup and an interesting sandwich of fried potato cakes around a ham center. Not the usual fare, although chestnuts were roasting nearby on an open hearth. This was 2003, the day sunny and cool, the flocked pine trees showing off their best imitation of snow while the blue Mediterranean sparkled past the

Karma, not instant

2005-12-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

Writers are prey to all sorts of schemes, scams, ill-advised plans, well-intentioned offers and more. We need someone to watch out for our best interests. We look for agents to represent our work and guide us through the arcane business of publishing, distribution and promotion. That desire/need for help can cost the unwary. Alan Wechsler of the Albany Times-Union reported on Dec. 6:"Six months

New travel piece

2005-11-27T12:48:00.000-05:00

I was happy to see The Tennessean use my article on High Hampton Inn - it's a pleasure to share great travel locations with others.Here's the link ....High HamptonMy new photo on the blog was taken there.Speaking of photos, we're having a blast with a new printer, a Hewlett Packard 8450. After reading reviews we decided on this slightly older model - 8 inks, absolutely gorgeous reproduction. It

In Progress

2005-11-12T15:04:00.000-05:00

Autumn Glory never reddened,too deep in shade,the light let in by the shedding mapleis too late, too thin, nowwhat’s set will have to stay,lank lilies, sundrops overrun by roses,chance plants from the farmers’ marketsometimes true to name,bought in hope for the green seedlingtwo leaves along.What’s too deep rooted or too late planted,will stay for winter, no moremoving,lifting or dividing, though

Summer's end

2005-10-26T17:41:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, the sun shone and the breezes were kind at High Hampton Inn. Jack and I strolled the grounds of this rustic resort near Cashiers, taking photos and enjoying the day.This pipevine swallowtail posed for some time, too absorbed in the dahlia to move, perhaps aware of the change to come.Monday afternoon, the winds whipped and the temperature dropped.Tuesday morning the mountains were

Plus ca change, plus ca meme

2005-10-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

"I have come to love stories that rush breathlessly along, that frighten one. I detest commonplace heroes and moderate feelings, as one finds them in nature." Emma Bovary

Voices from the Hill

2005-10-03T07:08:00.000-04:00

August Wilson has died, taking a voice that distilled the experience of black Americans in the 20th century in a cycle of plays - "Fences," "The Piano" - all but one of them set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.That was a rough neighborhood - the shorthand term for violence I recall from the Pittsburgh evening news. But it was also a vibrant, crowded, raw, rich place whose cadences Wilson

Images of Katrina/Rita

2005-09-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

The images have become too familiar.With Katrina, it was the sight of thousands of our fellow citizens drifting down interstates suddenly become dead ends, or crying out for rescue, or simply gone into the stupor of dehydration and heat.Now we see Rita, repeating the images of flood and destruction. There is less hopelessness, more property destruction. Recurrent in these and every other

Revisiting

2005-09-27T08:55:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the stories seem better when viewed at a distance. Sometimes worse.I had a short-short story that had been languishing in the files for a couple of years. It grew out of personal experience, walking the boundaries of my West Virginia farm with the man who was to buy it.Of couse, the characters and the incidents are changed or remodeled to fit the needs of the story. But the descriptions

Identification

2005-09-18T17:54:00.000-04:00

Just finished "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood.Funny how a book will draw me, I'll buy it and put it on the shelf for months or even years before the right time comes.I bought this copy at a gigantic used book site in Maine - a former chicken barn, with antiques on the first floor and books on the second. So large that a map was provided - Judaica this way, juvenile fiction that way.That was 10

A Cautionary Tale

2005-08-21T14:55:00.000-04:00

Long time gone....busy with the start of classes and family events. (And Jack and I sailed with Steve on his Flying Scot and are being inevitably drawn, like a depowered star cruiser around a black hole, into that passionate band of boat loyalists.)Browsing the Internet and found an article on the Christian Science Monitor from Aug. 18:click hereOne of those heroic ideas in a glorious but

A cozy visit to hell

2005-08-07T11:44:00.000-04:00

I've been checking in on Allison Perkins each day.I worked with Allison at the News & Record, knew of her struggles as her husband was posted to Iraq and back, and learned of her decision to go with him this most recent time. With children in tow, she followed him to Kuwait, so that their family could be a family.While there, she's become a war correspondent, telling stories from the field that

3 ways of considering a carnival call

2005-08-05T17:52:00.000-04:00

Automatic pencilAutopencil, to write moving finger without thought, to fill page after page like a signature machine freed of the loops and squiggles of a program, like the mind in long stretches of waiting for something, waiting is all, waiting is the empty place from which understanding blooms like a seed sudden from the desert after a breath of rain.Automatic pencilMy father’s clipboard, his

The Twist in the World

2005-08-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

I thought it would be a day – tomorrow will be three, and if everything works out, I’ll have my glasses back. Without the lenses that put the world back in shape, my own poor natural lenses have had their way with perception. I’ve always been nearsighted. And astigmatic, which makes everything twist and shimmer. And with age, I’ve lost the ability to focus on text and other things

Breaking the Wave

2005-07-30T17:04:00.000-04:00

It wasn’t that long of a heat wave.The afternoon air hit like blast from an opening furnace when you walked outside, but the ground didn’t crack, and the grass underfoot scarcely crunched. The cicada song was persistent but not yet maddening.Still, when the thunderstorm hit on Thursday night, it was an event.Jack and I sat on the screen porch, watching the wind pick up. The leaves rattled inside

Certifiable

2005-07-25T20:50:00.000-04:00

Thanks to instructors Steve Raper (who took this photo) and Wayne Jones and the Lake Townsend Yacht Club ... and a great class of fellow novices ... Jack and I have been certified for small boat sailing.Along the way, we had some frustration and lots of fun, and are now reading sailing magazines and plotting our course to a boat of our own.

Learning to Fall Before You Fly

2005-07-13T07:27:00.000-04:00

Falling over backwards was not a skill I ever hoped to master.Not at those leadership seminars, trusting that I would be caught by a "team” member I barely knew. Certainly not on the spring-loaded trampolines of long-ago gym classes.Here I was, standing on a tippy sliver of fiberglas, pulling the aluminum mast and a blanket of sail down after me as I headed for the green water of Lake Townsend.I

Shifting the Curve

2005-07-10T11:33:00.000-04:00

If you scroll way, way down to the bottom of this blog, you'll see an icon about the MIT blogger survey. It doesn't take long, and you'll become part of the statistical bank showing who's who in blogging.I was particularly interested in the part of the survey that dealt with social networks - the people you know, who's in your family, how you met them. Most all my contacts were made offline -

Try This

2005-07-09T10:56:00.000-04:00

I’ve been playing in the fields of the dictionary lately, a result of reworking a poetry collection yet again. Some of the poems are years old – back and back and back – past Carolina to West Virginia and memory before. I’ve spliced and splintered, put new wine in with the old, hoping this tempers the soft with the sharp, the discursive with the abrupt. Hoping the whole will blend and layer,

July

2005-07-01T08:23:00.000-04:00

In honor of July, an excerpt from "Mayapple," one of a pair of linked stories in Fidelities. The story was first published in the online journal "Ray's Road Review," edited by Chris Duncan whose blog can be accessed at left.Gerard and Kay are climbing up the wooded hillside, away from the city and the heat and the thickened air shimmering among the buildings, as if the flood-prone river had come

With your shield, or on it

2005-06-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

This morning brings a couple of news items from the journalism front. Time magazine has decided to turn over files in the Valerie Plame case, saving its reporter from jail. No word yet on whether the New York Times will act in the same manner.The Supreme Court earlier this week declined to interfere with the lower court's ruling that the journalists could be jailed for refusing to testify as to

Bloggerguilt

2005-06-21T18:58:00.000-04:00

Feeling slack - a weeklong workshop and the end of first-session summer school kept me away from the keyboard. A timely reminder got me started again - thanks!I've mentioned the ConvergeSouth program being sponsored by N.C. A&T and the Greensboro blogging community this fall. I'm working on the Friday sessions, where we are planning three tracks aimed at journalists and educators.The first deals

A single day

2005-06-20T19:16:00.000-04:00

A single day turns spring into summer, a moment when the sun appears to stand still - if we have time to watch.The daylilies create day by day, old blossoms shriveling and new ones unfolding. We are reminded that we have only this day, this hour, this moment. The flower unfolds. The day lengthens. Fireflies rise in the cooling night.Welcome summer.

2005-06-20T19:08:00.000-04:00

Double River Wye hemerocallis

Join Us

2005-06-11T10:30:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm scrolling through aggregates of military websites, looking for bloggers who might be in or near North Carolina. I'm on the team for ConvergeSouth 2005, http://2005.convergesouth.com/, which will be coming to Greensboro in a few weeks, and one session is planned on the Iraq war and bloggers.The breadth and depth of the blogosphere on this topic is astounding. Some sites are reminiscent

Pattern recognition

2005-06-07T18:03:00.000-04:00

I was standing in Bicentennial Park, waiting for Turbo to finish analyzing the bouquet around a small tree, when I spotted a four-leaf clover. No big deal, except that I hadn't found one in a long while. Maybe two years? And when I was a child I used to find them in multiples, pressed them in every large book I could locate around the house.Later that afternoon at home, I found another one in

Memorial Day, two Marines

2005-05-30T13:44:00.000-04:00

The groom wore dress blues, his white hat set at the perfect angle, the red stripe on his trousers like a ruler. My father, a Marine from the Korean “conflict” five decades ago, said “Semper Fi” as we walked past.The bride wore a formal wedding gown, all crystal beads and lace, meant for the white runner of a cathedral rather than the well-trod grass of a public park. The wedding party was small,

2005-05-25T21:31:00.000-04:00

Creole Rock from the beach at Grand Case, St. Martin.

The Underworld Sea

2005-05-25T21:03:00.000-04:00

If you were seeking a Martian, you might find it in the spindly creation called an arrow crab.Sebastien of Grand Case Beach Club Watersports www.snorkel-trips-sxm.com lifted one of the fragile arthropods from the sea floor and set it on my hand. The head and body were as narrow as the legs, a spire or a minaret. When I let it wash free, it drifted down like the frame of an umbrella. Jack and

Witness

2005-05-23T11:07:00.000-04:00

Not much gets Americans together anymore.Oh, people come out for festivals or concerts or Super bowl parties, but that’s entirely on the basis of entertainment. Personal utility.We know that people don’t vote, a public ritual that has little direct utility but a lot of social impact.This morning, Greensboro came out in a big way for an event that marked a passage for this city and symbolized much

Regalia

2005-05-05T06:29:00.000-04:00

It arrived in time - a parcel post box from Salem, Va., with the master's hood I earned way too late in life. It has the royal blue and white of Queen's University, and a band of chestnut brown velvet to indicate the M.F.A.Regalia seems too much a word for somber academic gowns, despite their satin facings and velvet bands. We've lost the art of adornment that tells a story - the colors and