Guest contributor: Debora Black
Getting Outside Saturday: The Feel Good
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
35 comments
The gondola car, packed full, makes a rough landing at the top of Heavenly, swinging from side to side from a one-handed grip on the thick cable, and bumping at intervals into the long length of dock before settling. There is a dramatic pause, waiting for the doors. I adjust my goggles as if I’m an X-Games contender. It’s a powder day in Steamboat, and I’m about to get my feel good. Continue reading →
Table for Two: Bill Interviews Himself
categories: Cocktail Hour / Table For Two: Interviews
4 comments
The Nervous Breakdown, a terrific cultural website on writing, books, music, and more, asked me to interview myself, which I dutifully did. The result is predictably ambivalent. You can read it there, or read it here and go there for much more.
.
Q: Bill, thanks for sitting to talk.
A: Thank you, Q. Continue reading →
Words That Map the Land (By Ecotone Contributors)
categories: Cocktail Hour
1 comment
The new Ecotone is almost here. Here are some sentences from former contributors……(It seems to fit better on its side.)
Guest contributor: Vasilios Asimakos
Bad Advice Wednesday: Greetings from a 25-Year Old in His Childhood Bed in His Parents’ House
categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour
21 comments
Vasilios at a reading from his screenplay, “The Ungettable Get.”
Speaking to Bill after his recent reading at Andover Books in Andover, Massachusetts, I asked for his take on some trouble I was having. We talked for a bit, he gave me some advice (not bad, because it was a Thursday), shared a bit of his own experience, then encouraged me to write in to Bill and Dave’s. I said, “But I haven’t come to any sort of conclusion about anything!” And he said, “Well, then write about how you haven’t come to a conclusion!”
.
I’d written a page about the particulars of my situation to send Bill. But when I read it over to edit it, I grew disgusted with myself and immediately deleted it. “For the love of God, man, stop whining,” an inner, much more put-together version of myself surfaced to say (in the voice of Ian McShane, strangely enough). But I mean, I’ve already got this word document open named “for Bill,” so I’ll at least send something. Continue reading →
Bad Advice Wednesday: Wait till the last minute!
categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour
4 comments
Portland has the best Christmas lights.
Well, it’s still Wednesday, so I think we’re okay here. I’m in Portland, Maine, after a great event at a great store, Longfellow Books (where they sell “that new book smell–not available on the Internet.” This is home territory in some ways, and a lot of fine feathered friends turned up, many of them writers. And talking to a crowd with familiar faces might be the hardest assignment of all. Especially when you know your bad advice is due! Ian McRae, Dave’s friend from third grade, reminded me as we met for the first time: “I’m still waiting for my bad advice!” Continue reading →
Getting Outside Saturday: Name That City!
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
16 comments
Cities from the air, Atlanta to Boston. Can you name any of them? A couple are obvious, a couple more I couldn’t guess. Positioned in order from Atlanta at the top. Guesses and rationales invited, as it drives me crazy when I don’t know! Window seat for me…
1.
Where’s Bildo?
categories: Cocktail Hour
4 comments
NOT HERE….
Been getting some flack for this picture but it is related to yesterday’s Bad Advice post. I want to look at the town of Vernal from all sides, and write a portrait of a boom town. This is part of it….
Or as I said yesterday:
Of course I am not just here to visit, not just a tourist. I am here to make something out of my visit. The visit then is raw material, and my job, much like the oil workers I am interviewing, is to extract raw material. My tools are slightly different than theirs: journal, micorcassete recorder, camera, a sometimes unreliable brain. Here in Vernal I am actually double dipping: I am writing a story on fracking for OnEarth magazine (due Decemeber 10th—yikes!) and also gathering notes for a chapter on boomers and stickers for Properly Wild, my Abbey-Stegner book. So like my fellow workers (I can hear them right now through the walls of my Econolodge room, getting up and heading out to their trucks right now) I sleep less and work harder while I’m on the job. Continue reading →
