Last week, I “attended” the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) Novel Retreat, an event that was supposed to be held on campus but like so many summer events became an online retreat via Zoom. I’m better on Zoom than I am in real life. Many complain about the platform’s impersonality, and I certainly understand … Continue reading Zoom Bloom
Readers! Last weekend I was in Missoula for the Montana Book Festival, an event I first attended twelve years ago. I was alone then too, wandering through crowds of writers and their books, listening to panels and readings, and wondering what it would be like to be at this event as an author. Now I … Continue reading How to Live
Spring is upon us at last! I write from the chair next to the window in my second story office from which I can see the apple tree beginning to blossom. In the side yard near my garden is a subspecies of apple that is not crab apple but blooms hot pink like a crab … Continue reading Pleasant Fifty-Year-Old Female
Reading isn’t private; it's done in public all the time. Yet without actually asking, you wouldn’t be able to tell what kind of reading life a person cultivates, if any at all. Other things you can't tell about people you know: if they carry grudges. You don't know how many or how far back they … Continue reading Secrets and Forgery