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The Year of the Hare
The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. – SocratesBe content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realise...
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The half-life of words
A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day. – Emily DickinsonThis is a problem all of us who write have to face: How long do I expect my words to last? Some of our...
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Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs
All books by Gerald Murnane, if you can find them, are fascinating. Obscure and fascinating. One feels as though the grit in one’s reading eye has been thoroughly cleaned out with…something. –...
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A Man's Hands
[T]the line between fiction and confession was so fine it didn’t exist – Andrew McCallum Crawford, ‘When Iron Turns To Rust’Just over a year ago I reviewed Andrew McCallum Crawford’s first collection...
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By All Means
Kathy Nightingale: What did you come here for anyway?Sally Sparrow: I love old things. They make me feel sad.Kathy Nightingale: What's good about sad?Sally Sparrow: It's happy for deep people.— Steven...
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Looking for Godot: Meaning in Jim Murdoch's 'Milligan and Murphy'
Only things that have no value are free of charge; those things are worthless but nothing is meaningless. – Jim Murdoch, Milligan and MurphyOne man’s sunrise is another man’s sunset. It all depends on...
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Dot Dash
Don’t be afraid to let the right brain off the leash. Don’t wait for inspiration to strike—start writing. And if all else fails, bring on a talking animal. – Jonathan Pinnock, ‘Anatomy of a Flash’I’m...
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My Mother was an Upright Piano
I like short stories’ implicit awareness that life has no neat endings, that it is comprised of many very small moments, all in their own way powerful and important, and that life is messy, it’s...
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Frog City Updike
Frog City Updike never would’ve been without Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, the book that showed me just how loose I could get with form. – Arthur Graham, Big Al’s Books and PalsOne of the words...
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Breeding words
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. – Friedrich NietzscheMy novel, Milligan and Murphy, is 169 pages long. On page 131 I end the sixth chapter with the following...
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Bundu
I wanted to show you what was happening here. Because anybody who sees it and can carry on with his life as if nothing’s the matter belongs before a firing squad. – Chris Barnard, BunduBiafra was the...
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The Garden of Evening Mists
The palest ink will outlast the memory of men – Chinese proverb quoted in The Garden of Evening Mists Persian carpets have flaws in them; horimono—traditional Japanese tattoos—contains blanks: ‘A...
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The Book
This book is not The Book. The Book is in this book. And The Book in this book is both the goodie and the baddie. – Amazon book descriptionI’m going to split this review into two halves. The first...
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Six books on Alzheimer’s and a poem
Alzheimer’s is the cleverest thief, because she not only steals from you, but she steals the very thing you need to remember what’s been stolen ― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title‘Journey into...
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Lunar Poems for New Religions
[T]he word “spirituality” [is] not a noun, it’s not a something. It’s not even a nothing. Or a preposition, a relational plank bridging a this and a that. It’s more like a verb, an action, a doing....
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Fact: an introduction to the poem poems of Glenn Ingersoll
Self-referential poetry is the surest sign you've run out of ideas. – Robyn Smith, 13 Words that Should Never Appear in PoetryThe expressions ‘confessional poetry’ and ‘self-referential poetry’ tend to...
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Nothing Gold Can Stay
North Carolina State motto: Esse quam videri (To be, rather than to seem) (1893)I don’t think I’d like to live in North Carolina. And certainly not in the 4.3 square miles that comprises Boiling...
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Another conversation with Stephen Nelson
Dialect words are those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel – Thomas HardyLike me Stephen Nelson is a Scottish poet although when you look at our bodies of work we’re really very unalike...
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Me and You
A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self. - Marian SandmaierI have mixed feelings about this book. When people say stuff...
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A Tale for the Time Being
Inspiration is a happy convergence of random factors, which if you are lucky, you notice and then can use. And it helps if you have a husband who sends you interesting links! – Ruth OzekiThis is a...
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