On Writing Like a Motherfucker*
I’ve read and heard a lot of writers talk about their relationship with a particular talisman–I forget who has a mug with Gold Letters that spell Writer across it. Some of my friends paste quotations in their writing spaces. Some writers advise the utmost in tidiness, a veritable sensory vacuum, or discomfort, or writing with […]
AWP Makes Me Sleepy, Inky, and Blissful
There’s a whole bunch of post-AWP posts this morning. Here’s one I like most, my friend Beth wrote it. Beth is my new in-person friend. My friend Jamie is why we know each other. Jamie is a good yenta. The Missouri review posted this. This guy I met is the editor of this great site, […]
A Good Chat, a Good Chap: Writing About Alive People
One of the many things that I laugh at myself about is that I’m 32. There’s really no call for me to be writing a memoir. I’ve got no business. I don’t think it would matter what I was working on, I’d feel like I had no business writing it. Another thing that gives me […]
Shit Got Real or One Bite At a Time
I’ve been writing this post in my head for a while. Been wanting to give you and me a break from the memoir drafting stuff. It is hard, hard, hard to be in self-examination mode, and to stay there, and to stay sane. I spent a lot of last week weeping. Part of it is […]
A Shower With My Sister: 2004
I was pregnant. I was also unwed, reading The Scarlet Letter, and really knowing what an utter turd ball Dimmesdale is. It was near the holidays, and I was still “seeing” the fetus’s father. But not seeing him in the forever way, in the “we’re in this mess together” way. I visited home for Christmastime […]
Letter to my daughter’s “father”
Dear Paddy, That’s what I call you now, in my mind. It is more interesting than your proper name, and you’ll know why I picked it. I’ve been meaning to write to you, to say thank you for the girl. It’s two days less than a month until your 32nd birthday. On your birthday I […]
I learned to bleed: 1991
Hi All, I’m a bit behind. My apologies. Warmly & Enjoy, -April ______________________ Learning to Bleed My mother was confused by the way I chose to alert her that I started my period in December. I’d recently turned eleven, and when I woke up with red stuff in my underpants, I changed them, put a […]
Intro to Bible Quizzing: 1994
This video is a montage from a quizzing tournament in 2006. It was posted on YouTube by WhyteRavyne. And in case you were wondering, Bible Quizzing is like Quiz Bowl, but for church kids. Day in the Life Me, Alicia, John, Justin, and Laura sit in a row on incredibly uncomfortable, cold metal folding chairs. […]
I got rid of half of my books: 2013
Until recently, half of what I own was books. Now, perhaps a quarter. I sat down with my book collection and I culled it. I looked at titles that I’d read, and would probably not read again, even my recently usurped *favorite* book which I owned in hardcover was tossed into a bin for donating. […]
Santa’s Penis: 1989
I am probably eight years old. We are at Rehoboth Beach in one of the many junk shops where we purchased two hermit crabs earlier in the week: one for me, one for my brother, with whom I have stopped bathing since he noted the first sprouts of pubic hair as I held a contortionist’s […]
