This week of teaching regular hours is both a break in my usual routines and a much more regimented new routine. The class day runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a nice lunch buffet at noon. Unlike my usual daily arrival at my office, I have to get to the classroom on time, […] Read More

Useful talk today in the writing workshop I’m leading this week at Meredith College–useful for me, as it happens. We were talking about writing dialogue, and the vocabulary and sentence construction that makes a person sound authoritative or timid. I said I use “I think…” too much before making my pronouncements while giving feedback on […] Read More

Second class day at the Meredith Writers Workshop. This afternoon we held the faculty readings. The three of us–poet Betty Adcock, novelist and memoirist Nancy Peacock, and I–all chatted and read for about 15 minutes each to an audience of the combined classes. I read the opening few pages of my novels Sister India and […] Read More

Sylvan setting; bold students.I’m teaching a one-week fiction-writing class for adults on the summer-lovely campus of Meredith College in Raleigh this week. Today was the first day. Sometimes people in a newly formed group hang back a little at being among the first to read from their work, or the first to comment on someone […] Read More

Van Jones, described as “a genius from the hood,” is founder of an environmental group called Green For All. He is aiming to “‘green the ghetto.'” A New Yorker article shows him giving a talk to a group of high school dropouts gathered in a public library. “‘I love Barack Obama,’ he said. ‘I’d pay […] Read More

I’ve always hated speeches that start off: “According to Webster’s, the word (honor, graduation, success, character, etc.) means…” However, it does say a lot about a concept to look at where it came from. And after all, a lot of us here do some writing. So here’s BOLD from Merriam-Webster: “Pronunciation: ˈbōld Function: adjective Etymology: […] Read More

“The fascinating thing about self-sabotaging behavior is that it actually takes an enormous amount of energy and mental stress, much more than if you just took the action you wanted or needed to do in the first place. The mental stress of feeling behind or beating yourself up for how a situation in your life […] Read More

A curious thing about waiting: some research I read recently said that people who’ve recently learned they have cancer are in better shape emotionally and show less physiological sign of stress than those who are waiting to hear their biopsy results. So when waiting is wearing us down, here’s a bold thought: there’s no reason […] Read More

Just got my every-six-weeks-or-so trim and it made me think of the hesitation many of us have about making radical recreational hair changes. For decades, I had long straight hair. It was a sort of signature. After a couple of years thinking about it, I got it cut to chin-length; and this was before advancing […] Read More

Bold self-expression can be even more satisfying when you’re able to make a living at it: that way you can do it full-time, and get it out into the world. Jackie Battenfield is an expert on how visual artists can do that. Writers and other artists can learn from her as well; I’ve attended a […] Read More