If there is anything I miss about teaching during the pandemic school shutdown, it’s sitting virtually with a group of human beings I care about, in absolute silence, and in the comfort of my home, while every student in the Zoom Room writes. A silent classroom, no doubt, is better, because not only could youContinue reading “Writing in a Zoom Room with Friends”
Category Archives: Writing and Reading
It’s Been A Long Time . . .
. . .since we rock and rolled. So long, in fact, that my hair color has changed from purple to blue and then to silver. Apologies to anyone who might have missed me. It was April the last time I posted something new. I’m not including July’s essay “Reflections on 37 Years of Marriage” becauseContinue reading “It’s Been A Long Time . . .”
#443: Of building and construction I have had . . .
The sonnetpocalypse continues on day 5 of National Poetry Writing Month. Here’s a home improvement sonnet with a dangling unrhymed couplet–because I can. Another note of interest, at least to me, is that the rhyming couplet at the end, before the dangler, uses an archaic phrase that I have always been fascinated by—the adverbial phraseContinue reading “#443: Of building and construction I have had . . .”
#442: I named my undergrad creative thesis . . .
Welcome to sonnetmageddon, day 4. Not even 1/6th of the way through the month, I have a sense of something taking shape in the way of a connective thread, beyond the repetition of this formal structure, the sonnet. Just four poems in, it might at this point be pretty oblique–so I mention it here justContinue reading “#442: I named my undergrad creative thesis . . .”
#439: The poet Larry Levis said or wrote . . .
Greetings! Happy April Fool’s day. Far be it from me, though, to play a prank on you, dear reader. So, I begin today holding true to the self-challenge of writing 30 sonnets in 30 days in celebration of National Poetry Writing Month. For this first one, I have decided to be faithful to the ShakespeareanContinue reading “#439: The poet Larry Levis said or wrote . . .”
NaPoWriMo 2023: A Sonnet Festival
Don’t ask me why, not just yet anyway, but I am moved this year as I anticipate the first day of National Poetry Writing Month to veer away from my annual practice–not by skipping it, or by doing something different, like working on prose, for example, like some fiction writers do in the fourth monthContinue reading “NaPoWriMo 2023: A Sonnet Festival”
The Book I Read: The Kudzu Queen, Reflections on a Mockingbird, and Ethna McKiernan
Hey there! Welcome back to the Book I Read podcast with Michael Jarmer Writer Guy, a podcast where I talk about books, reading in general, writing fiction and poetry, with some occasional diversions into music listening, teaching and learning. Hey, hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day–and a stellar President’s Day. We’re supposed to beContinue reading “The Book I Read: The Kudzu Queen, Reflections on a Mockingbird, and Ethna McKiernan”
The Book I Read: Groundhog Day Redux–Forever
Hey there! Welcome back to the Book I Read with Michael Jarmer Writer Guy, a podcast and blog series where I talk about books mostly, among other things: reading in general, writing fiction and poetry, some occasional diversions into music listening, teaching and learning. It is January, so, happy new year to you. I hopeContinue reading “The Book I Read: Groundhog Day Redux–Forever”
The Book I Read: Late Work—An Autobiography of Love, Loss, and What I Was Reading
Hey there! Welcome back to the Book I Read podcast/blog with Michael Jarmer Writer Guy, a podcast where I talk about books mostly, books I’ve read exclusively, reading in general, writing, listening, teaching and learning. It is December; the holiday season upon us. Last time we spoke it was October when it still felt aContinue reading “The Book I Read: Late Work—An Autobiography of Love, Loss, and What I Was Reading”
Notes On My First Attempt at NaNoWriMo: Writing a Novel in 30 Days
It has been five days since I reached the goal of writing 50,000 words, a draft of a novel, in a single month. I wrote, to be precise (sort of), 50,139 words during the month of November, and according to my goal tracking page on Novelpad (an online novel writing application I discovered through theContinue reading “Notes On My First Attempt at NaNoWriMo: Writing a Novel in 30 Days”