If you’re interested in taking one of my one-day creative writing workshops this fall, you can check them out here. Every day my goal is to get to Amazing in the New York Times spelling bee game (I don’t care about Genius). The other night, at dinner with friends who also love the Bee, I told … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Betsy Franco
(Note: I only write about books I love.) The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay. I’d dipped in and out of this book before, but finally read it straight through, essayette to essayette, until all the essayettes were gone, kind of like I do with the bags of Lindt milk chocolate truffles I buy and … Continue reading August 2021 Books I Read and Loved
If you’re interested in taking one of my one-day creative writing workshops this fall, you can check them out here. Words by Winter: my poetry podcast My dog is perfect at being himself. He twirls madly at the sight of his food bowl, springs straight up when he sees a favorite human, sprawls belly-first when he … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Andrea Cohen
My poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. In order of preference, here are my spoons. 1. The wood-handle spoon. 2. The all-silver spoon. 3. The red spoon. 4. The green spoon. 5. The blue spoon. (The Chinese spoon doesn’t count because I only use it for soup.) I detest the blue spoons, but they … Continue reading Poem-like Prose of the Week, by Annie Dillard
Hi everyone. How are you doing these days? Surviving? Possibly thriving? Looking without and within and taking stock? Do you feel yourself changing in ways you didn’t expect? Maybe windows are blowing open in your mind and heart the way they are in mine. One thing certain in a world of upheaval is that storytelling … Continue reading Fall workshops just scheduled!
My poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. When I bought my house, its little city sloping front yard was scrubby grass. Every year I dug holes and stuck perennials into them. Now there’s no grass left, just phlox and coneflowers and bee balm and Russian sage and baby’s breath and lilies and balloon flowers … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Camille T. Dungy
An older man with a cane came to my front yard poetry hut a couple weeks ago. Big smile. Lively eyes. He thanked me for all the new poets he’d found over years via the poetry hut and we began talking about his favorite Minnesota poets. He was handsome in the same tall lean way … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Kari Gunter-Seymour
My dog and I often walk past a house being built on Lake of the Isles. For two years now I’ve watched this house take shape from a staked hole in the ground to the beamed stone and frame beauty it’s becoming. A craftsman built curved and arched stone walls by hand, hefting each rock … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Stephen Dunn
The photo on the right is one of a bunch of family photos in my living room. Is that your daughter? people sometimes ask, and I smile. She does look like me, doesn’t she? I say. But the girl on the windsurfer is me, long ago, back in a life I used to live: a … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Maggie Smith
My poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. I’m a self-taught maker of extremely imprecise, freeform story quilts that I hand-quilt and then embroider. This morning as I flicked around the internet looking for cool hand-quilt block patterns, the word “quilt” suddenly looked entirely wrong. Too short, too abrupt, missing one or more letters, and … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Robert Francis
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
the literary asylum
