Category: reading
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within and without
I’ve been in a men’s book club for about two years now. This time last year, we read Parker J. Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. Much of the book is spent exploring how to draw out one’s soul in a world of compartmentalization. Palmer makes…
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what happens?
Oftentimes, when I’m writing, it’s easy to lose sight of the important questions. I get wrapped up in my ideas, my self-prescribed brilliance, my ego. By holding too tight to what I’m making, I prevent the story from becoming what it wants to be. With storytelling, the simplest question is…
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a pocket companion
When I was inEurope a few years back, I bought copy of Kerouac’s On The Road at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. I carried this book with me across France, through the Netherlands, and then into Italy. It stayed in my pocket on a flight across the Atlantic, back to…
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swimming upstream
I’m currently reading Alan Jacobs’ Breaking Bread with the Dead. It’s a tough read, but absolutely worthwhile. In one passage, he advocates for “reading upstream,” which is to say looking to those who influenced your influences: I took a couple of classes in medieval literature but I came to adore…
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doors, not mirrors
Fran Lebowitz makes an excellent point about reading in the final episode of the new Netflix series, Pretend It’s a City: Now people are always saying, “There are no books about people like me, I don’t see myself in the book,” […] A book isn’t supposed to be a mirror,…
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my problem with YA
A few years ago, I pitched a book to an New York agency. It was a story about the first years after college and navigating the trials of early adulthood. “This will be great for the Young Adult market,” the agents said. I balked. “Isn’t the whole point of YA…
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spending my days
Thought I’d share a few thing I’m using to pass the recent days. Movies: Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) – The greatest cinematic crossover event in history. Don’t @ me. Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) Revenge of The Creature (1956) – yikes… Frankenstein (1931) Bride of Frankenstein (1935)…
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paying attention
I was working on an art piece recently and found myself so focused on the finished product, I didn’t pay attention to the details along the way. The result was a piece that didn’t come remotely close to match my intention, all because I was focused on the product and…
joshua chamberlain 