The Wren in the Writing Shack III.
categories: Cocktail Hour
1 comment
I finally have some photos to post of the wren nesting inside my writing shack. Yesterday Kate Miles visited us here in Wilmington. Kate is the author of the essay, “Dog is my Co-Pilot,” that appeared in both Ecotone and Best American Essays, and of the book, Adventures with Ari.
Anyway, Kate had already seen the jelly bean-sized eggs that were in the nest, and we were sitting in the shack and sipping beers and staring out at the nesting swan on the marsh, when the wren flew in, landed on the stick that Hadley calls “the wolf’s leg,” checked us out, tilted its tail, and hoped into the nest. And the bird turns out not to be photo shy. Here are the results…..
Nothing But the Truth!……Or Maybe Not…..
categories: Cocktail Hour
3 comments
I swore I would not be drawn into the latest round of the “truth in non-fiction” debate, but as someone who makes their living teaching “creative nonfiction” it’s hard not to give in to the pull. The other day I wrote a comment on Brevity’s Facebook page: “The truth (!) is that if you have worked in this genre for a while it is really quite easy to be both artful and accurate. A simple introductory phrase, a framing, takes care of everything. It’s a joke really. Like listening to skiers on the bunny slope debating about what it might be like to go down the black diamond trail…….”
I have grown increasingly strict with myself when it comes to my work. But I’m not so strict with others. A few years ago I was on panel about just this subject with three other writers, Philip Gerard, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and Bill Roorbach (aka Bill). Quite accidentally we sat ourselves down at the table in the order, from right to left, that we believed that nonfiction must be factually accurate. I believe Philip sat on the far right, John next, then me, and Bill on the far left. Philip is a friend and I just had the pleasure of reading his great new book of essays (The Patron Saint of Dreams, published by Hub City Press) but he was once a journalist and so doesn’t see why it’s so hard to be both artistic and accurate. And why not? My own position has moved steadily in the direction of fact, to the point where if the panel were held today I might be sitting on Philip’s lap.
But I still respect Bill’s refusal to heed the more strident orders of the fact police, and his insistence that this is a genre that should be subjected to standards of its own, not those of journalism. The most obvious example is remembered dialogue from childhood, which brings us right back into the hazy halls of memory.
That said, anything of that sort can be handled with proper framing, as I suggested in my Brevity comment.
Guest contributor: Joshua Bodwell
Bad Advice Wednesday: Guest Contributor Joshua Bodwell
categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour
4 comments
This Won't Hurt A Bit
.
This piece by MWPA director and all-around good guy Joshua Bodwell appeared originally in Maine Ahead, and speaks directly to business leaders, nice idea: Hire a writer! And of course Bill is available for any type of surgery. Bring your own hospital gown. Bill has a Leatherman and a hack saw. Dave is in charge of anesthesia. Rates are competitive with the best garages.
.
Please, Hire a Writer
My pal Bill Roorbach is an exceptional storyteller. He is descriptive yet concise on the page, and perfectly meandering when he shares a story over a beer. Continue reading →
Vernal Equinox
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Our Best American Essays
Comments Off on Vernal Equinox
23.4 degrees
Here is the equal night again, so different from that of autumn, which comes dressed in summer. In fact, the first day of spring comes to Maine in high winter drag. Often it comes dressed in snow, thick and wet, mixed with rain.
For me in March most of the pleasure in watching snow accumulate has fled. I decline to shovel the driveway, thinking, Snow’ll be gone soon enough, and pay for that when the slush left over freezes in deep ridges that last weeks in a cold snap. I consider the skis—but the snow is so wet and heavy, and I’ve been thinking about my bicycle, my hiking boots. Soon enough.
But, of course, it’s not soon enough. It’s weeks, sometimes, in grinding cycles of melt and freeze, and melt and freeze again. And again. Time never moves so slowly as in the transition from winter to spring in Maine. By March the mind’s night has got very long, and I have gotten used to it, gotten cozy alone in there, in my thoughts. Continue reading →
Getting Outside Saturday: Learning the Island
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
3 comments
LEARNING THEISLAND
Journal Entries from my first year in the South and My Daughter’s First Year
September 28
The swallow migration is coming through. These shield-like aerodynamic birds dip and shoot over the sea oats like hallucinogenic flecks. Meanwhile the sanderlings work the tideline with their sewing machine bills, searching for mole crabs, while Black Skimmers get active at dusk. The skimmers let loose a noise like the wahh-wahh-wahh. of adults talking on Charlie Brown.
On the way in to work this morning I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a pick-up. Other details hinted that the truck was owned by a hunter, but it was the sticker that really gave it away. It read:
“If it Flies, It Dies.” Continue reading →
Where’s Billdo?
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
2 comments
Treasure Map
Today, Juliet and Elysia and I hand the keys over to the housesitter, shake hands with the chickens, hug the dog, and head off to Costa Rica. I’ve been before and enjoyed both rainforest and dry-forest so much that I vowed to go back. Then, I was inland; then I stayed at biological research stations (and took a course on teaching in the tropics). This trip we’ll be on the Pacific Ocean, two different stops, and staying in lodges. The first is on the Osa Peninsula (that elegant Continue reading →
Happy (Pagan) Birthday to Me!
categories: Cocktail Hour
2 comments
My wife was recently reading Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, and found out this about March 15th, my birthday:
Bad Advice Wednesday: Revel in Creation
categories: Cocktail Hour
6 comments
Is creativity its own reward? As someone who has written eight unpublished books or so, which amounts to about 16 years of life, this is not an academic question. Rather it’s a pressing one.
Let’s throw out the easy answers. Yes, a couple of these were “apprentice” works that later books built off of. But most were the real thing, from brainstorm to rough draft to many revisions over weeks and months and years. So, since they did not see the light of day, were they “failures”?
In a way, yes. For me writing is a drive for truth but it is also a drive to communicate, and even when that communication takes years of solitary work it is a final goal. This final goal was not realized in these stillborn books, and so yes, on that level they failed.
But they did give me something and that something has become the most reliable source of pleasure in Continue reading →
Dummy Downhill
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
Comments Off on Dummy Downhill
.
In my ongoing coverage of small town events, I can’t forget to offer a glimpse of the annual Dummy Downhill race at Titcomb Hill, the terrific little ski area here in Farmington. It’s a community treasure, not three miles from our house. Various endowments fund free downhill lessons, free cross-country lessons, free racing lessons, a kids’ race team (F.A.S.T: Farmington Area Ski Team). Little wonder that the Mount Blue High School are state ski champs more often than not, and this year once again. The lodge is a simple barn of a building with volunteer-staffed snack bar. The hill is steep enough for some fun, big enough for a number of trails, and sports a Continue reading →
