Joy in 2022 It’s 2022, and I keep thinking of the word Joy. Maybe I return to it to move past 2021—a reflex to the news cycle. Perhaps Joy is the mantra 2022 needs. Joy Joy Joy It’s a beautiful-looking word with the tall majestic “J,” the perfectly round “o,” and the low-hanging “y.” While […]
On Order
It’s fitting to think about how I put order to Anything That Happens. Since its publication, my daily life has unraveled. I’m scattered, or is it that I’m feeling pulled in different directions. It’s summer. Post(?) pandemic. In my family sphere, there is a lot of movement and growth around me as I remain stationary. […]
On Process
In April, I cut twelve poems from the poetry manuscript I planned to have finished by summer. Twelve out of sixty is a lot of poems. More than that, the poems were a thread in the book that no longer worked. Meaning, I took out a section of poems on a topic that (I once […]
On Lyric Poetry
My school-aged children attended their last day at school on March 13, 2020. The following week I transitioned my house and work-life to include homeschool. On Sunday morning I woke up early, before everyone else in the house, and cried. A good, deep cry as I sat at my new “teacher’s desk.” Then I wrote […]
On Concision
The quote, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter,” has been attributed to many people: Blaise Pascal, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, Cicero, Woodrow Wilson, Mark Twain. According to Garson O’Toole at Quote Investigator, the saying originates in 1657 by French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. That it […]
Writing Process Blog Tour
This leg of the Writing Process Blog Tour has hit North Carolina via my beautiful friend and writer, Suzanne Farrell Smith. Suzanne’s essays weave sentiment with science, humility with sin, and humor with heartache. She’s a master seamstress with words and one of the hardest working writers I know. To learn about her process, check […]
