We Shouldn’t Should Teach Creative Writing
When I saw Louis Menand's "Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing be Taught" in this week's New Yorker, I cringed, sighed, and devoured the article right at the kitchen table. As one of the many MFAs...
View ArticleSo, Iguana be a citizen?
My friend Molly and I were strolling through East Rock Park last Saturday morning. Not unlike the joggers and the church picnickers, we were thinking about life and what it felt like to live it on that...
View ArticleWhat I assume, You shall assume
I recently heard that one of my old students fell into a conversation in which my name was brought up. Apparently, he really split everyone’s sides by recalling, “Ms. Moncrief totally has an unhealthy...
View ArticleSummer Lovin’-in a flashy 19th Century Sort of Way
At the beach this week, my friend was reading Music for Torching by A.M. Homes. After the novel, she couldn't get her dramatic internal monologue to turn off. She confessed the novel left her narrating...
View ArticleApnea Caesura Hold Break
Silence is all we dread. There's Ransom in a Voice -- But Silence is Infinity. Himself have not a face. -Emily Dickinson Andy and I have been driving from Burlington, Vermont and back to New Haven a...
View ArticleLaudo the Seas!
(Relatively) jobless as I am, I've decided to audit a Latin class at UVM. One week in, and there is no doubt that learning Latin is hard work. But it also feels like entering a Fairy Kingdom; the first...
View ArticleHow is Loneliness Pure? And why?
I was hankering for a good adventure movie the other night- something 18th century and swashbuckling. I stumbled upon The Red Tent, on the cover: a tattered crew huddled in a wreck in the middle of an...
View ArticleThe missing lung and The Resurrection Trade
The other day, I woke to the radio reporting, “Lung stolen from Peru exhibition of human cadavers.” And then later that morning, I read Leslie Adrienne Miller’s fifth collection of poems, The...
View ArticleThis Catalogue is Analogue to the “Seen and not heard” rule -a quick look at...
We are getting mail in droves. We aren’t getting holiday cards, we’re getting catalogues, by the dozens. The people who lived here before us were certainly eclectic-Parts-Unlimited Snowmobile...
View ArticleMay I ask…
I’ve recently received the four volume set of The Paris Review Interviews. These books, colorful inside and out, are a pleasure to look through and laugh or cringe at the pith and wit of the 20th...
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