Archive

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 [...]

Where else can a firey-eyed cabaret singer and composer eat Gummi Bears, drink wine, and talk books with a 90-year-old gem-of-a-poet? Where else can that same poet ride an exercise bike in the [...]

It’s been a fulfilling three weeks. I’ve applied for three fellowships, submitted to four literary magazines, and maintained my editing duties all the while. The fellowship applications, of [...]

It’s darn near impossible to capture the fleeting yet meaningful connections forged at a place like VCCA, but picture this: we’re all situated around the fireplace after dinner, [...]