Latest Thoughts
A Creative Manifesto
Picasso famously said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” How can we be creative every day? No one assigns us to be creative. And, what’s more, society usually doesn’t reward creativity, at least not unless your work makes it to the shelves of a bookstore, the walls of a gallery, or the stage of a theater. You might not think you’re a creative type, but to be human is to be a creative type, so one of the shoulds in your life should be to make sure creativity is not only at the top of your to-do list, but that you put your creativity into action every day.
Recent Writings
Rejection’s Gift: Divine Dissatisfaction
Poets & Writers, January/February, 2020
We writers tend not to give rejection the love or respect that it deserves. We speak ill of it, as if it’s a malevolent demon, a destructive force, an uninvited guest that ruins our party. We revile it. We curse it. We reject it. Because rejection is a damnable, despicable thing that seemingly aims to only hurt and hinder. It gives us no warmth, no love, and we writers need love; in fact, we don’t just need love, we need love in bounteous, fulsome heaps. We want editors to gush over our words like a teenager with a crush. We want readers to slather us with adoration.
Imagination Under Pressure
Poets & Writers, January/February, 2018
I’ve started to see the constraints of my life as advantages in disguise. I’ve observed many a person with time on their hands fritter it away, and then have the audacity to complain about not having enough time to get anything done. I’ve come to realize that our imagination doesn’t necessarily flourish in the luxury of total freedom. Our imagination thrives when pressure is applied, when boundaries are set.
Naked (On the Page) and Afraid
Writer's Digest, July/August 2015
Good writing requires courage—first to give voice to the truth at the heart of every story, and then to share it with a world of readers. The only way to achieve that is through an openness of spirit that can feel dangerous—or even be dangerous. Here's why embracing vulnerability could unlock important doors for you, your writing, and your career.
More Ideas Faster: Writing With Abandon
Poets & Writers, January 2015
A few years ago I grappled with a simple question I had never before bothered to ask myself: Did I decide on my writing process, or did it decide on me? Despite an adult lifetime of reading innumerable author interviews, biographies of artists, and essays on creativity, I realized I’d basically approached writing the same way for years. And I didn’t remember ever consciously choosing my process, let alone experimenting with it in any meaningful way.
Going Long. Going Short.
New York Times Draft Blog
I’ve always wanted to go long, as in writing that big behemoth of a saga called the “Great American Novel,” no matter the absurdity of questing after such a holy grail. I thought the best way to understand the endless ribbons of America’s highways, the oozing boundaries of our suburbia and the rhythms of life they induce in us, resided in an ever expansive aesthetic of maximalist comprehensiveness, full of crisscrossing tentacles of story lines and sentences bursting with syntactic curlicues. …
Six Stories About Gerard and Celeste
(Part of a longer series)
Paragraph Magazine's 100th Issue
After he had children, Gerard saw each person as another’s son or daughter. The pinch of worry in a mother’s eyes just after midnight. The dreadful, slow wait until the front door creaked open once again. Safety. Or was it? He wanted to tell Celeste he touched her with such care, even as they lay in the strewn sheets of another cheap hotel room. ...
Morphine Drip
Green Mountains Review, Spring 2014 Issue
“It’s what we remember,” Dad said, as if clinging to a frayed thread tossed to a man overboard in a storm. He said something about a boy named Jim, his pants down to his ankles, his tuxedo shirt unbuttoned. Long baby hairs on smooth cheeks. Frogs croaking in the woods, gin rickeys under an August moon, the violet night. Outside a few parked cars, inside the ruckus of others. “Never underestimate the comfort sin can provide,” he said. “A lifetime of bedtime stories all to your lonesome.” Skin crinkled around his eyes. His dry lips pressed feebly around a straw.