Poet Reporter
A different kind of reporting, through the eyes of a poet.
Where We Are Drawn
A few years ago, my sister and her husband bought a house in the countryside that had been vacant for a while and whose well had gone dry. Rather than pay to tap into the county water line that was two miles away, they decided to dig another well. The question was where. The neighbors down the road told them to contact the Water Witch…
Drawing That Line
Did you ever sign up for something and almost instantly regret it? Like, maybe at the time you were thinking, “Well, my initial answer is no, but this might be a good learning experience for me…” Then you get roped in to a little more, and a little more, and before long it snowballs out of control. Suddenly everyone is telling you what you should do, and just because you don’t want to, what does that matter?
Emergence
Ah, emergence. This is my favorite word. I love it because it’s a bubbling up to the surface, a process of revealing something once concealed.
Not to be confused with emergency—no one likes those. But emergence and emergency come from the same Latin root. Emergence went the way of rising up, and coming to light, while emergency took the short, quick road to a sudden, unforeseen event…
Crabmeat Cheesecake
Memory portals. That’s the phenomenon where songs and movies can transport us back to a favorite time in our lives.
I love the movie Twister, likely for the memory portal it opens up for me. I’m talking about the original from 1996, not so much the new version. I was living in Myrtle Beach for the summer between college semesters, interning for a newspaper…
Champions Abound
The Olympic Games give us a couple magical weeks to find new heroes, reclaim old ones, and to relive the excitement of times when we were involved in something bigger than ourselves. It’s like being on vacation as a kid and jumping out of bed the moment you woke up because something big was going on and you didn’t want to miss any of it…
Champion Road
With the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl happening in the same weekend, everywhere we look we see champions. We’re surrounded by athleticism, grace, tenacity, and a never give up spirit…
Rise Above
When I was a kid, I thought I was Spiderman. I even had the web shooters for my wrists and used to run around catching household items in my webs. When I got a little older, I wanted to be Wonder Woman. I had a red cardigan with buttons that I would wear as a jacket outside when the Pennsylvania weather was decent…
Enter the Steam
There’s a story written in the 1940s by William Sansom about prisoners who have to wring the water out of a long sheet. Have you read this? If they can get the sheet to dry completely, they can gain their freedom and leave the prison. But to complicate matters, every so often the wardens release steam into the prison rooms, dampening the sheets the prisoners been wringing out…
The Next Ten
When I was little, my mom would take my sister and me skiing in the winter. My mom loved to ski, but she felt that paying a babysitter while she went skiing was too much indulgence, not to mention she thought we’d like it, so her solution was simple: Bring us with her…
Motivation
Writers get into their characters’ headspaces. We know their backstory. We wrote it. We know why these characters act the way they do. We know how they think. So we get in there and write accordingly…
Pristine
On New Year’s Day I looked out to a lovely blanket of newly fallen snow. What had been treacherous travel the night before was now quiet, clean, and innocent-looking. The symbolism was abundant: A brand new year ushered in with a refreshingly clean slate.
Pristine is the word often used to describe this newness….
Marking the Miles 2025
Those of you who read my original blog a bunch of years ago will remember that at the end of each month I posted a “Marking the Miles” blog where we looked back over the month to my favorite writings and what they meant to me. With this year speeding toward a close, it felt appropriate to bring that tradition back…
Holiday Dinner
At a birthday this weekend, a bunch of us sat around the table with coffee and cake retelling old stories. These are the best days, when everyone is talking and laughing together. This time, though, instead of just following along, I found myself asking direct questions and trying to get the details right. I’ve heard many of these stories before, and it’s high time I did something about it…
Second Snow
The first snowfall of the season is cold and beautiful and fills you with wonder. You run to the grocery store and stock up on bread, milk, and toilet paper and then rush home to enjoy the show. As the fluffy flakes pile up, you might wander outside, taking pictures and making the first tracks in the pristine snow…
Misfits and Christmas Letters: A How-To Guide
Sometimes you sit down to write and you have nothing to say. Other times you have so much on your mind that the words get jammed from your mind to your pen/keyboard. It happens whether you’re writing books, blogs, or Christmas letters…
Notes to Self
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of hidden messages. Secret compartments, hidden treasures, following clues to find things tucked away, these are fun places for the imagination to go.
Notes passed in class were always exciting. I don’t know about you, but the notes I wrote and received were always about something fun…