Writing
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The ambient temperature is chilly as I write. Not freezing, not spring, just chilly. I yearn to be outside working in the yard and garden. I don’t yearn enough to bundle up and brave the cold and wind. At least I got the garlic in the ground on Saturday and it rained Sunday. I’ll take… Read more
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The constant news cycle is not good for us. Sunday is as good a day as any to take a break and focus on the real world all around us. It is also a day to post my favorite photo of the week. Read more
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Editor’s Note: This is a draft chapter from my memoir. I was assigned to the Schererville, Indiana trucking terminal of Lincoln Sales and Service for most of the time from 1987 until 1993. On my first day of work, as I crested the railroad bridge just south of the Schererville terminal, I saw a car… Read more
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The work I dois not for meso much as it is forthe friends I have come to know.The collagesThe poemsThe journal entriesThe performancesNot for me.The nuns taught us.All for the honor and glory of God.It is a lessonthat stuck.~ Labor Day, 1989, Lake County, Indiana Read more
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Editor’s Note: Our arrival in Big Grove Township was marked by the first in a series of extreme weather events: the 1993 flood. It was called a once in 500-years flood, yet we would soon find out flooding had become more common, including the next 500-year flood event in 2008. I plan to weave at… Read more
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Drafting Part II of my memoir is proceeding well. During the last ten years I did so much work writing bits and pieces that paragraphs now fall quickly into place. I have a solid draft of chapters 1-17, which is before we moved to Indiana. Because the time is so recent (1988), and because I… Read more
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Ambient temperatures were in the mid-40s yet it was the wind, gusting at 25 mph, that made garlic planting impossible. I rescheduled. The soil is right, but I didn’t want to fight the wind. This year’s garlic is an experiment. It is not going as planned. This excerpt from my journal seems apropos for today.… Read more
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On Thursday, the University of Iowa announced a funding cut for the International Writing Program founded by Paul and Hualing Nieh Engle in 1967. The U.S. Department of State notified the University of Iowa International Writing Program on Feb. 26 that its grants through the department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs were being terminated,… Read more
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Like many Midwestern homes, ours has become a cornucopia of stuff. I think about downsizing, and had better get on that or face an estate sale at the end of the line. For now, though, the accumulated memorabilia is the equivalent of a limestone quarry: the stuff of which to build my literary edifices. Instead… Read more
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I put up three posts on Substack to see what they did. They got a lot more views than the same posts received on WordPress. Is there a future there? I don’t know. The challenge I face, and many others like me, is to monetize my writing. I have one book done and privately published.… Read more
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