Karen Douglass, Author

Karen Douglass, Author: Prose & Poetry

Category: Uncategorized

  • Seasonal Sadness

    Whether we call it seasonal affective disorder or the winter blahs, we know that this dark time of the year can suggest never again being warm and free of gloom. So for millennia we have created festivals of light–candles, holiday decorations, elves in bright red suits, and a reindeer whose nose is a beacon in the fog.…

  • Reader’s REvision

    Since my first year in grad school I have read John Fowles’ The Magus repeatedly. I’ve read the original version and I’ve read the revised version he published twelve years later. There’s no counting the copies I’ve owned, including at one time a first edition and a signed paperback. They have all gone away, sold or donated…

  • Lies & Disbelief

    I like to believe that I’ll write best selling books for a decade to come, that money and health will last until I die suddenly in my sleep, my obit featured in the NY Times. I tell myself that one more burger with fries won’t hurt me. Electronics are made by sweetly smiling fairies in cloud…

  • Time’s UP!

    There’s a song from the 1950s, “Little Things Mean a Lot.” I agree. Little words mean a lot. Comedian George Carlin (may he rest in peace) once said that rather than get on the plane, he would prefer to get in the plane. Think about it.  So the little word for today is up. Campaigning…

  • My City Follows Me Around

    Yesterday I read Benjamin Percy’s essay “Move Mountains: Activate Setting” (AWP Chronicle, Vol 49, No 3, Dec 2016, 98-105). He makes a convincing case for orienting the reader to place and giving place agency in the story. Things must happen that could not happen just anywhere. Although not exactly news to me, Percy makes a good argument…