Category: The things we talk about…
To Sort of Tell the Truth or What’s my Lie(s)
One semester in grad school we read for a nonfiction class two memoirs. One was Geronimo’s Bones and the other was A Million Little Pieces. It was quite a coincidence that during that semester they were both uncovered as frauds to one degree or another and that fired the debate about the truth in nonfiction. …
The Truth Behind the Lie(s)
In a crowded auditorium in Walla Walla, Washington’s Whitman College, a student raised his hand and asked Tim O’Brien why he wrote fiction about his war experiences. O’Brien said, “To tell truths that I can’t tell in nonfiction.” Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, Pam Houston, Flannery O’Conner
Whose Story?
Just saw Quentin Tarantino’s new film Django Unchained. I was excited to see it. The first review I read was Spike Lee’s statement that he wasn’t going to see it because it was an insult to his ancestors. The debate about who as the right to tell a story concerning slavery was in my head …
Two Minutes and the New Year
I recently sent an essay to a close friend, Chris, to read. He’s an army journalist now, but back in the day we were undergrads together on the school newspaper. We wrote and talked of writing and attended every open mic and I can neither confirm nor deny
It’s not all about YOU.
The four squad-bosses gathered around the wildfire-truck. We had been assigned to dig and secure a section of fire-line that dove into a steep canyon and then in burn it off to create a firebreak and hold it through the late afternoon. At the end of the day we debriefed
Sobbing for Home
My friend, who I liked to call Beezer, had an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth, hiked her butt onto the edge of the pool table and took a shot, sinking the number she had called. Before her next shot she took a big drink. I told her, “Is this the day we chase the …
A Mid-Week Post: Routine
As many ways to write as there are writers, but one thing in common: They all write. http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/
Place and Displace Part II
What is it to write from displacement? Literature is rich with the diaspora of peoples who have spread out of ancestral lands, but what if you had no ancestral land to be displaced from? What if you are diaspora of one?
Place and Displace
During my weekend in NYC, I was anointed an honorary New Yorker. Cool for me as I love the city and now when I return I can say, “Yep, I’m heading home.” I kept thinking of belonging