I hate it. I wish it were not true, but whenever I have penned something delicious or exciting or in some way daring or brave, a series of questions begin nagging my monkey mind: What will my students think of that? How will my mother react? Will my brother disown me? Will my wife want me reading thisContinue reading “#3: Self Censorship and the Creative Writer (You Can’t Say That)”
Category Archives: Writing and Reading
Reading With My Boy On Easter Eve
It was a first, a first on this Easter Eve afternoon. Sure, we’ve read to our son at bedtime almost every night of the week since birth, but this was the first time ever, on this warmest and sunniest day of the year thus far, that my son and I were to sit down together,Continue reading “Reading With My Boy On Easter Eve”
Combustion Deconstruction: Some Musings on the Fate of a First Novel
I started writing my first novel when I was, perhaps, 28 years old, I finished it coming out of an MFA program when I was 32, revised it when I was 35, began a long, demoralizing, tedious, and ultimately unsuccessful agent search, and then, when I was 40, I put the novel in the proverbialContinue reading “Combustion Deconstruction: Some Musings on the Fate of a First Novel”
Of Being Tired of Writing About Teaching
I think, at least for now, I’ve exhausted my brain and my “pen” regarding teaching, issues of public schooling, educational crisis, education reform. I know I will come back to it. It’s inevitable. But for the time being I feel like anything I have to say now will be a repeat of something I haveContinue reading “Of Being Tired of Writing About Teaching”
Of English Teacher Math: Teaching 200 Students How To Write
Here are some numbers to consider for the end of the semester. I asked 140 IB English students to turn in their logs, into which they have composed over the last 4 weeks anywhere between 20 and 30 pages of response to the readings we’ve done out of The Best American Essays of the Century. Let’s justContinue reading “Of English Teacher Math: Teaching 200 Students How To Write”
Of The End of Winter Break and a Bunch of Other Of
Sunday, January 6, the end of Winter Break in the school district for which I work. Always mixed feelings about the end of any lengthy break from teaching. There’s some dread about having to get up and work hard again, always. And there’s a sense of discombobulation and confusion about what it was we wereContinue reading “Of The End of Winter Break and a Bunch of Other Of”
Of Prepositions: A Prose Poem
Aboard a ship, about one or two years ago, above the rough sea, across the widest possible expanse, after a drink of the finest bourbon, against all of my best intentions, along the lines forming in your skin, amid the mist, among the surging anti-trees, WTF, around nothing worth mentioning, as far as I could throw, at last, before dawn, behind me, below me, beneath me, beside myself with something orContinue reading “Of Prepositions: A Prose Poem”
Of Childhood Rock and Roll Fantasy
It was 1977. I was 12. From the perspective of my suburban cultural landscape, I was not yet aware of Talking Heads or Blondie. I hadn’t heard The Sex Pistols, The Boomtown Rats, XTC or Japan. I had not yet discovered the punk rock and the new wave or the truly experimental prog. I hadContinue reading “Of Childhood Rock and Roll Fantasy”
Of Resolutions
The only new year’s resolution I’ve ever made and then kept was the one I made last year to publish my novel Monster Talk in 2012. But I think I was cheating because the decision to do the thing was made before the close of 2011 by a couple of days–so the ball was inContinue reading “Of Resolutions”
Of Of and On
What’s it about. What’s the subject. Why no question marks. One could perhaps ad an of or an on to any title and the title would still function properly. Check this out: Of The Great Gatsby. Of Shades of Grey. It would not work so well, though, if one’s title begins with a preposition, ifContinue reading “Of Of and On”
michael jarmer 