Karen Douglass, Author

Karen Douglass, Author: Prose & Poetry

Tag: literature

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Faith, Hope, Clarity and Sweetgrass

    Some books earn my respect, even affection. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is one. The subtitle tells a lot: “Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.” I am not a gardener nor a farmer, so anything that explains plant life feels fresh to me. Kimmerer is “a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled…

  • Off to the Races

    Recently I wrote about my top shelf favorite books. This week I reread Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born. The first time I read that book, I was angry, awakened and stunned by turns. For the first time I understood my history as daughter and mother in a new/old way and the gender inequality that, after three…

  • Top Twenty Shelf

    Recently, I had a discussion with four other women writers in which we talked about Virginia Woolf’s classic A Room of Ones Own. My copy is marked with the little dots I put at key points, a few underlines, and some modest wear on the dust jacket. But to me it’s a valuable book. And that…