Dandelion dreams

I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up at half-past three in the morning. I don’t remember dreaming. I take my final on Tuesday, official grades post on Wednesday, and my pinning ceremony is on Saturday. I graduate, and I’ll be one exam away from my license and being a registered nurse. Things feel…

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In the forcing jar, does the bulb dream of spring?

It strikes me that sometimes my imagination is too small. When I started on this path, I did not begin to have anything beyond the vaguest outlines of how the choice to become a nurse would change me. Yes, yes, I knew that it would do so, and I even had intellectualized that knowledge into…

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new story published!

For relative values of “new,” I suppose. The first draft was written in 2011. “The Coffinmaker’s Love” had its start at Clarion West. It was the first story that I wrote there, on Week Two, with Nancy Kress instructing. Week One was Paul Park, and he helped us lay groundwork and ran us through exercises, but…

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as the hours wind down

I can feel Yom Kippur approaching. The turn of time is inexorable and I feel the gathering up of whispers, susurrations of lives lived and days spent, the rustle of divine fingers on the Book of Life and the Book of Death, turning pages. My thoughts are somber, and my mood is odd. I am…

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the Clarion West Write-a-thon

Clarion West was an amazing experience for me. It was, in all honesty, one of the best things I’ve ever done. During the six weeks of the workshop, there’s a shadow event happening, one in which anyone can participate:  the Clarion West Write-a-thon. It’s designed to do two major things:  bring in funds for the…

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unexpected asskickings

Those of you who write have probably had this experience: you read a published story or novel and it makes you go, “I can write better than that.” And if you’re honest with yourself about your talent and skill, it’s true. You can. And if you’re me, you have to admit that whatever novel it is…

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several things, catching up

I guess the simplest thing to do is to just start and go from there. * I’m writing this from California’s Central Valley. I’m here on spring break, visiting my family. I spent a couple of days up in San Francisco seeing friends. The weather is fairly beautiful, with so much blue sky and clouds…

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on turning 35

I turned 35 today. I am extraordinarily okay with that. That’s good, as there’s really not much I could constructively do about it, else. The thing that’s different about this birthday versus my previous ones is that I’m living in a new city far away from most of my people. Granted, I spent my thirtieth…

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for the record, this poetry stuff is HARD

So, I’ve got a story that wants to be told as a poem.* Now, I’m a bad poet. We’ve established this over the years. No matter, the story still wants to be told as a poem. *muttering* All right then, I’m writing the story as a poem. It’s difficult. Not just because I have to…

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