Processing life through writing
I used to think writers needed intense life experiences for their work to be valid. Surviving childhood trauma, death of loved ones, grinding poverty, violence, or illness was necessary to produce lasting, meaningful work. Now I think this is BS. First, sadness and joy come with being human—like fries with a BLT at a roadside… Continue reading Bailey White & Belonging
When we learned in 2018 that Anthony Bourdain had passed, my husband and I were shocked. We had watched his show, Parts Unknown, for years and felt like he was our good friend. Maybe he was a bit rough around the edges, but he brought out the best in each area he visited and each… Continue reading Remembering Bourdain
When my oldest son was a toddler, and the Minnesota winters kept us inside, we’d spend hours reading picture books. We’d drive to the library, check out a foot-tall stack of books, and then read through the entire stack multiple times a day until the next library trip. My husband and I quickly learned which… Continue reading On Writing (for Kids)
Critique can hurt, especially when it comes to writing. A former client would always reply, “It's a good start" or "It's on the right track" to my drafts, no matter how much I applied their comments from earlier pieces to each new one. Even though my successive drafts were so polished that they shone like… Continue reading Creative Work for the Greater Good
Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter is about a young adult navigating her place in an upper-midwest Ojibwe tribe while pursuing justice among its members. The main character, Daunis, is already caught between two worlds before being recruited as an informant for the CIA—her mother is from a rich family with French roots, and her deceased father… Continue reading Earning Our Stories
What does the word “craft” bring to mind? A small boat? A potter’s studio? Pom poms and glue sticks? One of my first memories of watching someone practicing a “craft” was at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival long ago. My family and I joined a crowd under a large white tent. A sweaty man wearing a… Continue reading Comma Drama
James Baldwin has been on my reading list for years. Baldwin is considered one of the most “influential writers of the 20th century;” his name has repeatedly appeared in books I’ve come across on both writing and social justice. However, I’ve avoided reading him because I worried his words would be soul-touching and perspective-changing. His… Continue reading Love is Another Country
Photo by Chris Long on Unsplash You’re driving down the interstate when you see a massive plaster sculpture of the Jolly Green Giant, his blocky 1950s grin startlingly white against the green of the pines around him. The kids are restless, and you need a stretch, so you pull into the parking lot, turn off… Continue reading Should Fiction be Safe?
There are some books you can read in half-light, and then there are those you need to sit with a lamp halfway in your lap to read. You know those books—they can almost fit in one hand, but the size eight font words are spilling over their impossibly narrow margins on the inside. Zadie Smith’s… Continue reading Confounded by the Curse of Knowledge
Fate brought me to Ernest Hemingway's The Garden of Eden. We had gone to a new library in the metro area to fill up a Sunday afternoon. Even though the library looked impressive from the outside, it had the smallest spattering of fiction I've seen - only about 50 titles per alphabet letter. Thankfully, one… Continue reading Hemingway Done Wrong
Writing Aloud 