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Writers Awake
Bad enough that the national news this week startled us and that people are taking to the streets in protest. That we have had another presidential election that thwarts the popular vote, the direct voice of the people. That my dear dog is fading slowly into infinity. That my daughter is dealing with her father’s…
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Odd Topics
Although I write mostly poetry and fiction, I read randomly—memoir, science, essays, whatever gets my attention, something strange, a book about a topic I would not have dreamed of. I welcome your suggestions, and here’s my sample reading list of twenty books: Barnett, Cynthia. Rain: A Natural and Cultural History. Beavan, Colin. No Impact…
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Fiction Comes to Life
Characters live long if they catch the devoted attention of readers. Characters act and react and please and disappoint. “Don’t open that cellar door!” But the character opens the door and out leaps. . . a lost child. Characters take risks, and writers take risks when they breathe truth and texture to a character. When they…
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To Pee on the Tree or Not to Pee?
When I walk Duncan the Dog, he reads tree bark the way I read books. He’s not interested in the tree itself, only the messages left by his canine tribe. I don’t know what he learns from his sniffing, maybe something like “Oh, that old lab was here today and that little Pomeranian is pregnant. Wow!” His…
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Hunting Hidden Treasure
Jonathan Waldman has written a prize-winning book called Rust: The Longest War. Waldman is a journalist and true to his profession he did plenty of first hand research about the problems of corrosion. Odd, you say, who cares, you say? We all should care. Waldman found that we almost lost the Statue of Liberty to corrosion. He…
Karen Douglass, Author 