"The only real access that I have to my mind is when I'm writing." – Kay Ryan
I don’t have a lot of items to list for this month’s roundup. I’m still working my way through Ken Liu’s Speaking Bones, which is the fourth book in the Dandelion Dynasty series. I’m enjoying it, but I haven’t been reading as quickly or as much as I usually do. Jen was out of town... Continue Reading →
The month of May is one of the months when I have five Wednesdays available for posts. In other words, today’s is a bonus post. I won’t be fitting its content around my rotation of topics. As this post’s title notes, I’ve been feeling a bit…unmoored recently. Since I am a proponent of introspection, I’ve... Continue Reading →
At the top of my website/blog, I have a Kaye Ryan quote, “The only real access that I have to my mind is when I'm writing. I chose that quote because it felt like something that I’ve long thought and felt about my own relationship to writing (and reading). As a child, I was an... Continue Reading →
Although you wouldn’t know it from the photos I’ve used on my blog, I love sunrise/sunset photos. (And, my apologies to all my former chorus/choir readers who are now humming a Bock & Harnick tune.) I love the different colors of reds, oranges, blues, and purples a good photo can capture. I grew up in... Continue Reading →
This week, Jen sent me a couple of news articles that were quite unnerving. And, another friend dropped off a newspaper clipping that added to the worry. The first article Jen sent me is from NPR and reports on bias in the workplace against overweight and obese women. The second article Jen sent is from... Continue Reading →
This month’s reading list has been a short one. I’m still working on Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, which is a fascinating read. I’m learning a lot about the history of northern cities and how their racial demographics changed in response to Jim Crow laws. A... Continue Reading →
The toughest blog post to write each month is the one I write in my grab-bag category. As many writers know, perhaps the worst thing someone can do to a writer is tell us to “write whatever you want.” The monthly roundups of my recent reading and viewing activities write themselves just by reviewing my... Continue Reading →
I spend a lot of my time as a writer vacillating between feeling like I’m a crap writer who should hang it up and being deeply annoyed that some really shitty writers have not only been published but have seen their work turned into films or TV series. I don’t think I’m alone in that... Continue Reading →
A lot of current events are swirling around us right now, and I have strong feelings about a lot of issues. From the ongoing violence in Israel during Passover and Ramadan to a federal judge rolling back 23 years of precedent on mifepristone. But the news item I’ll discuss this week is the Tennessee House... Continue Reading →
I haven’t been reading at my usual pace, which typically gets me through 50-75 books a year. But, I did read a few books in March that I’d like to bring to your attention in case you haven’t heard of them. The first book I finished in March was Babel, or the Necessity of Violence... Continue Reading →
Ruth F. Simon 