Letters and tombstones are an important key to unlocking the novel’s character’s motivations

In Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, through the motifs of letters and tombstones, we see characters who wrestle with making a lasting mark on the world or at least creating a lasting memory of themselves for those who come…

Or why writer’s block is scarier than clowns*

Perhaps the simplest way to deal with writer’s block is to prevent it in the first place. This means to assume that at any given time you may encounter it, so proactively arm yourself to keep it at bay.

Here are five…

Helen Kesler Pautz (July 11, 1931 — March 20, 2021)

My mom died three days ago. She was 89. She survived the year of COVID in a nursing home and yet did not die from COVID. She died from normal things that people normally used to die from.

While I…

Three-time poetry Pulitzer Prize winner

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) was born in Head Tide, Maine, but grew up in Gardiner, Maine. Many of Robinson’s poems are set in the fictitious Tilbury Town — based on his boyhood home of Gardiner, Maine. He attended Harvard for two years and then worked…

Best known for Spoon River Anthology

Almost as much as their poetry, I enjoy reading about the lives of poets. Because I am beginning a poetry graduate certificate next month, I decided I would commit to a project of learning and writing about a poet a day. …

A fascinating history of computing told through vintage computer ads

If you are a fan of vintage advertising and are interested in the history of computing and computers, you will find the book, Do You Compute?: …

Rereading the classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald as an adult

Like most American high school students, I was required to read The Great Gatsby as a teenager. I remember not liking it, or at least not being impressed by it, but I don’t remember why.

Fast-forward (mumble-mumble) number of years…and…

Here is a reasonably priced BuJo with extra goodies!

Earlier this year I took a short class on keeping a bullet journal for writers. I also bought two different bullet journals. One was a pricey gold-colored 6th Anniversary Special Edition from the originator of the bullet journal, Ryder Carroll (Leuchtturm1917)…