It’s just no good to describe the act of writing. You’ve probably been served one of those glossy photos of a person in starched white, smiling and tapping at computer keys or scribbling in a journal. A shapely mug of coffee is always cooling, un-drunk beside them.
This isn’t an accurate image, of course. But it is dull watching a writer sit quietly alone. She tilts to rest her head in one palm. Her other hand scratches away at a notebook page. The clock ticks.
You want to hear instead what she is writing or learn the value of the words she’s putting down to paper. You want to know what it’s all about.
It is hard to say why, but a lot of us keep writing despite moody isolation and occasionally hair pulling problems. There’s the fascination with world-building, the texture of the sounds, the thrill of solving that extra tricky problem.
I’ve covered the local beat at a newspaper, written academic papers I presented at conferences and published freelance travel writing, features and book reviews. Through it all, it’s the curiosity and creation that draw me on. Trying on new perspectives, seeing the world fresh and being utterly transported by story.
Bone Girl
An example of Story Slant in action! This piece is from my full-length speculative memoir in progress, “Ghosting.”
Water, Water, Everywhere
This piece was the winner of the Oregon Quarterly essay contest. It is a model of my new passion for speculative memoir and another fun way to explore Story Slanting.
Giving Spirit. Melinda Gates
I wrote for Alaska Airlines Beyond Magazine for about five years and covered many bookish topics. This cover feature on Melinda French Gates was not overly bookish, but it was a fascinating exploration of creative mission and the benefit to embracing failure.
Life By the Book
This piece on librarian rock star, Nancy Pearl, was part of my five-year run writing bookish pieces for Alaska Airlines Beyond Magazine (RIP). Pearl’s philosophy on genre has stuck with me and you might hear me bring it up at a party sometime.