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Today involves the easiest, shortest drive of my 23-months (and counting) residency tour: the drive HOME. Farewell, VCCA! I wish every artist I know could come here and experience the magic. Stay [...]

Leaving is never easy, but I’m getting better at it. Goodbyes can still be hard. I often look inwards for answers. Did I reach my goals? Make good use of my time? Here’s the [...]

Last week I wrote about the Crawford Cemetery, high on a hill above Sweet Briar College. A few days following, I ran into an archeology professor while biking around campus and he told me how to [...]

For the most part, I’ve stayed on an early morning schedule, rising at 6:45 am and sharing breakfast with a few other early birds. Aside from getting a head start on the day, this ritual [...]

Of course, as dedicated and monastic as daytime life at VCCA appears (it’s possible to go an entire day without speaking to anyone, if you happen to eat meals very early or very late and [...]

Aside from the images posted yesterday, several quotes have echoed in my mind’s ear off and on these past two years. They come from soldiers and civilians from all walks of life, but they [...]

I’ve been looking over what visual artists call “source material” for my war stories. That is: the sights, sounds, and facts that feed my obsession with the global war on terror [...]

“Yalla, yalla!” These two words in Arabic have traveled with me from residency to residency and state to state, for twenty-three months. In English, this translates to [...]

One thing I always take great pleasure in wherever I go is exploring my surroundings. This year of the tour, I’ve been able to do lots of that on my bike. I usually start with the immediate roads [...]

Alright you writers out there…what’s your secret? How, oh how, do you get your short stories past 12 pages? Past 15? I’ve been blogging about process, I’ve been trudging [...]