What is fiction for? Why on earth do we read fiction? One of my husband’s favorite “writer” stories concerns an author with a very Southern mother whom he called to…Continue readingLying for a living
I’m going to a writers’ retreat in a rustic and charming place on the shores of Lake Quinault in Washington. It’s March. The light is that earnest bright shade of…Continue readingThe writer and the storyteller
I wrote this piece nearly 20 years ago for the online journal Swans, talking about a different war, different refugees — my war, my refugees. So little has changed, nothing…Continue readingTHEY CHANGE THEIR SKY
An Ode to Summer Delights I have frissons of existential fear every time I wander past the news headlines these days. There is only one explanation for what is going…Continue readingWhen the world goes mad
Wars, refugees and the twilight of the spirit Wars seem to come naturally to our species. Too naturally. I once read that we and a handful of species of ants…Continue readingRefugees of war
Why can’t a woman save the world? I watched the first episode of a new disaster TV series, ‘Salvation’, and while I was entertained enough to keep watching, there was…Continue readingWhere are the women?
… get your ideas/write a book?’ One of the perennial questions posed to authors in many many many interviews is the fabled “Where do you get your ideas?” I too…Continue readingHow do you…