When you corner someone to enthuse about your latest writing project, your victim’s first question is likely to be, “what’s your story about?”
I weeded my flower bed today, sweet friend, and I thought of you.
I hate unfinished projects. They whisper nagging words in my ears and poke me in the ribs when I try to relax.
One year ago today, a phone call at six am from the hospital jarred me out of a fitful sleep. My father had died, two weeks shy of his 83rd birthday.
Because of the way politics works in this region nobody wants to make a hard decision on things.
The first thing I remember about my dad was his huge, powerful hands. I watched him crush walnuts inside his strong fist at Christmastime when the nutcracker was nowhere to be found—and I figured a man with strength like that could do just about anything.
Late one night, the acute care section of the emergency room was filled with people (mostly seniors) who were all admitted and waiting for available rooms in the hospital. My father was among them, and I waited with him to hear the results of a few tests. In the next bed was an old woman […]
If you are a writer, you know that a big project can get under your skin. When it’s not going well, it becomes a niggling obsession. Even if you never develop it past the first draft, you are still driven to finish it, because writers are disciplined people. Your characters are only half-drawn. They stand naked and alone, and if you don’t dress them, no one will.
This year’s prestigious Maillet-Frye lecture, the flagship event of Moncton, New Brunswick’s international Frye Festival, was lent a little more prestige on April 29 when it welcomed Diana Gabaldon as featured speaker. The author of the eight-book Outlander series, as well as a host of other related novellas, has sold more than 28 million books […]
I was yanked out of a deep sleep in the wee hours of this morning by an overwhelming, high-pitched tinnitus in my right ear—but this time it was so loud I could hear nothing else in the room. And I cried out in fear and frustration, because there is no cure.
