The Perfect Patron. You make lists of books you want to read. You reserve them online. You patiently wait your turn for the new bestsellers and head promptly to the library when your time has come. You check out with a clean conscience using your own card, upon which no fines or warnings have been … Continue reading The Three Kinds of Library Patrons
In glove compartment: Miniature hard-plastic snap-open box of baby wipes bought in hopes of maintaining then-new car cleanliness. Small pack of kleenex received as part of complimentary “sniffles” pack given out by former health care provider (hated term #1: “health care provider,” along with hated term #2, “educator”). Insurance card, possibly up to date, … Continue reading Partial List of Items to Be Found in Small Cinnamon-Colored Car, from Memory
Pretend you have grown wings and are flying high in the night sky above the Homestead, in far upstate New York, about five hours driving distance north of New York City. (The fact that New York State geography is defined by its relation to New York City is annoying to you, but you accept … Continue reading The Homestead: Where I'm Writing from
Zip codes in which you have lived: 02114 (past), 55408 (current), and 05346 (also current). Apartments: six. Houses: four. Bathroomless one-room cabins in Vermont: one. Children, two of whom are now as tall or taller than you: three. Neurotic cats: one. Hyper dogs who remain meth-head-like no matter how much you exercise them: one. Broken … Continue reading By the Numbers
If you’re a wordsmith looking for a brief, fun and intensive workshop, you might be interested in one of the three-day classes that fellow writer Brad Zellar and I are launching in January. These new workshops, each of which focuses on a different subject, are ideal for writers with significant life experience – fifty and … Continue reading Creative Writing Three-Day Intensive Workshops
This is not a photo of my grandmother McGhee, obviously, but it IS a photo of her dog Jody butting heads with me, and I loved Jody, and so did my grandmother, so there you have it. I would write this one down in the words of my grandmother McGhee as exactly as I can … Continue reading Another tiny story of immigration
Here is a tiny story of American immigration, set down here exactly (or as close to exact as I can get it while going against my own nature and resisting completely the instinctive urge to embellish and embroider it, re-tell it in my own way – as told to me in my childhood by my … Continue reading A Boy Jumps Overboard
A few of the long-standing rituals without which I fear I might float away: A daily to-do list, made each morning at dawn and returned to throughout the day, only three of which, in twenty-five years and to the best of my recollection, have ever been crossed out in their entirety. Picturing each of my … Continue reading Rituals
Pigs at the trough, a photo which has nothing to do with this entry but which I chose nonetheless Despite having lived in Minneapolis for over twenty years, I still can’t get used to the skyways. For those of you who’ve never been here, the skyway system is a many-miles-long pedestrian walkway which weaves throughout … Continue reading Stranger in a stranger city
Oh, my garden, must I say goodbye to you? This is the time of year when I begin my countdown to December 21, when we will have made it through the darkest days of the year, and the sun will begin adding minutes to the day. I’m one of those who knows to the second … Continue reading October garden
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 