Any important literary work is like the Trojan Horse at the time it is produced. Any work with a new form operates as a war machine, because its design and its goal is to pulverize the old forms and formal conventions. It is always produced in hostile territory. … [Read more...]

I’m in Trout Lake, Washington, visiting my parents. They live in a beautiful place, surrounded by evergreens, bordered by the narrow, fast-running White Salmon River, which feeds off snow fields on nearby Mt. Adams, one of the highest volcanic peaks in the state. … [Read more...]

Have you noticed how long in the tooth this war is getting? I recently went back to work on a piece I began more than two years ago, "Stepping over Bodies." It's not finished yet but I want to put it out there before we all forget what it felt like to be shocked at … [Read more...]

Last Sunday, Winston and I took a walking tour of Greenwood Cemetery. Although the cemetery is within a couple of miles of our house, neither of us had ever been there. “Brooklyn’s Victorian city of the dead” was how the outfit that organized the tour described … [Read more...]

I just heard my friend and teaching colleague Jocelyn Lieu (author of the story collection Potential Weapons) give a wonderful reading from a work in progress, a memoir of September 11th. The theme of the reading was “motherhood,” and she selected passages about … [Read more...]