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Have and Have-Not
Mark and Matt on the banks of the haves A couple of weeks ago, I attended the first installment of the Hugo House Literary Series, one of four events that brings together writers and musicians to...
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Things I Learned in Texas, Part 2
Sometimes, you just don’t see it coming. Last Friday, I felt a bit off; I figured it for a backlash cold from Thanksgiving week. Saturday afternoon, while volunteering at Hugo House’s Write-O-Rama, I...
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Happy Frickin’ New Year
‘Tis a new year —a time of hope, an era of beginnings, fresh starts, healthy diets, exercise regimes, flapping doves, laughing babies, flying swine, unicorns— the possibility of change in the face of...
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Homecoming
I had anticipated last week’s trip to Pullman, Washington, for some time. Since November, I’ve been working with teams to prepare design proposals and presentations at Washington State University, one...
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Feet First
After wading through my firm’s annual marketing report and compiling an inventory of my own literary works for EDGE class this week, I sat down with the intent to write about report cards: the kind we...
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Slapstick
Despite my wacky and ribald personality, my go-to style of writing often lists into the maudlin and the serious. I do wry quite well, but not necessarily funny; I’m the Aimee Mann of the personal...
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Economy
At the end of my junior year at university, I acknowledged two facts whose existence I had struggled to shrug off since childhood: first, while I loved science, I didn’t love it enough to become a...
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Risk
Picture this: TSA agents staring slack-jawed at monitors, screening for dangerous weapons like guns and suntan lotion in bottles larger than 3 oz. A factory worker pulling a defective toy from an...
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Rules
Must the Gun Always Fire? (And Other Rules of Writing) was the theme of Friday night’s Hugo House Literary Series installment. Three writers, including the terrifically witty Anthony Doerr of Four...
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AWP14
Those who didn’t venture near the Washington State Convention Center in the last four days are likely unaware that over 10,000 writers converged in Seattle for the 2014 AWP national conference....
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This One Time At Writers Camp
Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings. —WH Auden During a recent Pacific Northwest heat wave, two hundred writers gathered nightly in a woodsy outdoor auditorium at Reed College to hear...
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Countdown
Today is one of those fall Sundays in Seattle that I live for: the sky is bright white with a thick cover of clouds, and with all the windows open, it’s about 65 degrees inside. I am bundled up in my...
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What Is She Doing?
Day one of “A Novel Performance” at the Central Library in downtown Seattle The title question is perhaps best answered when accompanied by another: “Are writers really introverts — or do we seek to...
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REJECTED! (Part Deux)
When someone discovers that I’m a writer, they are most likely to blurt one of two things: nervousness at me correcting their grammar or spelling (seriously, folks, don’t worry), or speculation and...
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Chasing Epiphany
Each year, I cobble together an educational program that serves as my DIYMFA. Usually, this means a residency, classes at Seattle’s Richard Hugo House, and a weeklong summer workshop. I’ve been to...
View ArticleDoldrums & Distractions
Hello there. It’s been a while. I’ve been on the road quite a bit. Pullman, Port Townsend, Tucson, San Francisco, New York and London, mostly for work. It’s been an arduous spring with not much time to...
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Tis the season for accounting. It’s the time of year when we let ourselves have that second cocktail or slice of pie while we ponder our achievements in 2018 — successes, big and small, that justify...
View Article2020, Here We Come
1. Decade of Change It’s not only the end of the year, but the end of a decade*. Maybe that’s why it feels like I’m sitting at the edge of a gargantuan cosmic maelstrom of change. It’s the accumulation...
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Experiments
I’m over six months into my sabbatical, a good time to reflect. It didn’t start out as I planned, the pandemic notwithstanding, and it look far longer to decompress than I imagined. In December, I...
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