Journal Prompt: Full Moon, Sept 30-October 6
The moon waxes to full this week, bringing us into a time of great energy and mellow ripeness. Autumn comes in, and the winds rise, ridding us of lethargy and heaviness, doubt falls away. We again are able to see the good in all things, the revealed silver lining.
The [...]
It’s Banned Book Week! The American Library Association annually uses the last week of September to celebrate “the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment,” according to the ALA website.
Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted [...]
I’ve been feverishly working on the novel, and while that’s my inclination anyway, there’s a certain heightened state of energy and attention I only get when I’m under a deadline. I’m enjoying such a heightened state right now: the first section of this new book is due to my critique group on Monday.
Part of using [...]
Journal Prompt: Waxing Moon, Quarter Moon, September 23-29
Autumn is here. Season of storage and scurry. The trees let go and cast off into their winter sleep, hibernation we can’t comprehend. Insects keep up their last and latest choirings. In my own household, our duties our limited: we have five pumpkins to harvest before the frost [...]
It was a dumb thing to do but it wasn’t that dumb. There hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake in years. And it was so exquisitely far from the rest of my life.
from Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
Talk about a great hook: Sunshine, the eponymous protagonist and first-person narrator of McKinley’s first book for [...]
Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at the online magazine Slate, announced this week that she’s going to write a novel online this month:
When we were told to take time off from our everyday beats to do some kind of ambitious, long-form journalism, my first instinct naturally was to do something legal. Then I thought I’d [...]
I find I do some really worthwhile writing in response. Sometimes to news stories, sometimes to essays or blogs. I usually respond when something taps a rich vein of feeling. The subject, or how it has been addressed, speaks to me so strongly that I can’t not respond.
Sometimes I send these responses, but most of [...]
The beginning of September feels more like new year to me than January 1 ever has, and I know I’m not alone, especially among my fellow writers. I think we all still look forward to the beginning of the school year as a time to start anew. One writer friend recently confided that she still [...]