Cocktail Hour
Dave at Doe Branch: A Photo Haiku
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
comments: 2 comments
Never to be seen again.
Getting Outside Saturday: Summer Pleasures, a Photo Haiku
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
comments: 2 comments
Poppies rock.
My New Book…and New Adventure…..And maybe a little help from you, Dear Reader
categories: Cocktail Hour
comments: 1 comment
It was almost exactly two years ago that I headed down to the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill. Many of you came with me, metaphorically speaking. This summer, with the fires raging, I will head West. My goal is to blog from the road, while creating a kind of state of the eco West report. As I travel I will also follow the trail left by the ghosts of Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner, and will ask what they would make of the state of things. To help fund my trip I have made a movie and launched a Kickstarter campaign, both of which you can see here:
Bad Advice Wednesday: Everything I Need to Know about Writing I Learned from Bartending!
categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour
comments: 8 comments
Make it a Double!
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Bill and Dave have got me thinking about cocktails. Writing, too, of course, and how the two fit together. And I’d really like to hear about how your work fits in with your writing. Or how it doesn’t. See, once upon a time I was a bartender. And lately, I’ve noticed that people who haven’t worked in the service industry react to that with a certain reverence and awe. “Wow, I wish I’d done that when I was younger,” they say. They imagine I was a sort of female Tom Cruise, shaking fruity libations, tossing bottles, juggling coconuts to the likes of “Kokamo,” lots of wicker and palm fronds and gorgeous customers lining up to fall in love. Continue reading →
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
comments: 30 comments
Far from my studio, in the world of Wild.
I really loved reading Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. I’m not alone in that, of course. The book has had the trajectory of a rocket and has left earth’s constricting atmosphere, bound for the heavens, and history. Cheryl Strayed has built the most compelling narrative out of a walk on the Pacific Coast Trail. Walk, ha. It’s 1100 miles of difficult terrain, from desert to snowfield to deep, dark forest. Also the forest of the soul. And that’s where the irresistible drive of this book takes place, the soul. Trail stories are nearly universally boring—a privileged person wears out some shoes, or a funny person mocks the enterprise, or an achiever overvalues his experience and documents every hard-won sandwich. Whatever, in the end they are victors, and their triumph has a moral. Continue reading →
Bug Haiku: North Carolina Night Insects
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
comments: 6 comments
Luna Moth
Getting Outside Saturday: A Couple of Journal Pages From Long Ago
categories: Cocktail Hour
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Bad Advice Wednesday: Be Relentlessly Generous
categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour
comments: 5 comments
Dave, Suzanne, Judy, Andy, Eve, Christine, at Doe Branch [photo Bill Roorbach]
Bill and Dave’s on the Road
categories: Cocktail Hour
comments: 6 comments
It’s great to be here in Western North Carolina, just north of Asheville, at Doe Branch Ink writers retreat with David and five talented participants, all of them working on books. We meet mornings and share work, talk writing, offer advice, heap praise. And we laugh a lot. Today’s the second day, and it’s amazing how fast a group bonds and gets to know one another. By the end of week like this nothing you assumed about anyone starting out proves to be true at all. Or if at all, only a little. Do you hear my southern accent emerging? Odd, since I don’t have one! After lunch there’s time to write. We reconvene for cocktail hour and then dinner, and the conversation has been great. Among us are former stand-up comedians, weather girls, executives, international nurses, and more. David and I don’t fight that much, but it’s tag-team teaching, a new game. Continue reading →
Thanks to some of our Recent Guests
categories: Cocktail Hour
comments: 4 comments
Monica Wood
