When someone signs up for a workshop they often say something like Alison, I need you to be hard on me. Don’t sugarcoat anything. I just tilt my head and smile. When I was young I sat through lots of tense workshops in which a few lukewarm-nice things were said and then the “real” critique … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Jim Moore
I once had a hideous job traveling to various colleges for short stints teaching Speed Reading (useless), Study Skills (mostly useless), and Mnemonics (useless unless memorizing long random numbers is your thing). The job paid almost nothing so I camped in state parks and scooped up extra packages of crackers, butter, mayonnaise, and marmalade at … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Anne Carson
When I was a little kid I loved the book The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, to the extent that I memorized my favorite lines: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. Then I grew up and had children, and then my children grew up, and … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Ada Limón
In the book I’m writing, a desperate child imagines himself far above the planet, far from the endlessly breaking bad news. He isn’t wired for the constant barrage of awfulness. None of us are. This is why I love and admire people like thirty-three-year-old Chris Smalls, who, independent from any giant outside organization, unionized the … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Robert Frost
Click here for details on my one-day spring workshops, including The Intuitive Leap on April 7 and Freedom of Form on April 8. The animal world I can understand: kill or be killed, kill or watch your children be killed. But so many of the things humans kill about are invisible and imaginary, like the boundaries between nations, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Goodies from my mailbox and camera
Telling all sides of the parenting story
Waking Up to Your Dreams
On James Baldwin and Diverse Literature
Putting those recalcitrant toddler cancer cells to bed...
your own PDK for writing
a collection of beautiful words.....
Objects, Memory and Meaning
If it can't be said in a hundred words, then it can't be said in a thousand.
sewing a handmade wardrobe
"drink from the well of your self and begin again" ~charles bukowski
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
Thoughts on the world around me
Alison McGhee 