My friend Sophie in the Moonlight had an idea--The Writing in the Water Book Exchange. If you wish to participate, you send me your favourite book - you pick the WHY component (is it your favorite because of the plot, the characters, the environment, the personal autobiographical space we were in at the time...) - …
He’s so logical.
"Are you scared?" my dad asked. I nodded. I was 7. "Do you want me to turn it off?" he asked. I peered out from behind the sofa. "No!" On TV, a giant cave floated through space about to eat the Starship Enterprise. "Leave it on!" I ducked behind the sofa again and then peered …
Bitterness in Creativity
Can a child make art? Do artistic standards make you bitter? Why is it that we can get so angry when we don't like a work of art or a book? What are your standards for a good picture or a good book? How do you know that something is good? What does the work …
Take the Blame
"She didn't have anything nice to say about you," my dad's wife said to me. "But I told her that we'd always gotten along just fine and I didn't have anything to say about things that had nothing to do with me." "What'd she say to that?" I asked. I was 20. My dad's wife …
Constructing Suburbs, Crashing Cars, & Jumping Off Buildings
It was after midnight when L. decided to take a shortcut through a construction site. She drove along the unsigned streets pass half-done houses and within a few turns was lost. We reached the end of the development--a road into a sandy, empty lot--and stopped. "I thought this went all the way through," she said. …
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Cookies Vandalize Car
If J. reads this, the secret is out--finally after 18 years. JT and I arrived at J.'s graduation ceremony and we took our seats. Then we snuck out. We rushed to The Olive Garden and made a meal of salad and breadsticks. We got back in time to meet J. in the concourse of the …
Ask Me No Questions
Every day was a surprise. On that afternoon, I saw my things laid out in a straight line in the carport. I was 9 and just coming home from school. I adjusted the book bag on my shoulder. Whatever the reason my step-mother had for pulling toys from my room, I wasn't going to like …
Recovering from the Weekend
"How many girls have you slept with?" the man shouts. The woman talking to me look over at him. "What did he say?" the first woman asks. He shouts the line again and adds, "That's what it says. Right here." I realize that he's reading one of the pictures. In a stone at the bottom …
Yep. This is it.
This is where I'm going to be, people. Yep. This coming weekend. (The embedding feature didn't work, so a link will have to do.) Watch. Yep.
Copycat
"She says your an automaton," my mother said to me. I was 12 and standing in her bedroom doorway. She sat on the edge of her bed. "What does that mean?" I asked, wishing I had my mother's vocabulary. "She meant you don't think for yourself. You think what I tell you. That you want …
Marta Bacon 