Poet, Writer, Instructor
Reflections on the day-to-day experiences of a working writer.
I woke up at 3:00 am thinking about bees (it’s one day before my 60th birthday, and I still can’t sleep through the night). The day before, my son and I were sitting in the garden when a swarm of bees flew over our heads and settled in a tree across the street. The sound of… Continue reading Bee-loud Brains
Happy New Year’s Day 2020! I decided to make a list of things I’d like to accomplish in my writing life this year. I’ll revisit the list in December and see how I did. Erica’s 2020 New Year’s Resolutions: Finish something big by the end of 2020. I have two big projects I’m working on… Continue reading New Year’s Resolutions
I admit it. I’m a sucker for books that claim to help me be a better writer. I even wrote one myself. I keep my favorite books on writing poetry, memoir, and nonfiction on the shelf closest to my desk. These books are old friends I turn to again and again: when I'm stuck, or need a… Continue reading My Favorite Writing-Craft Books
I like to tell my friends that I never, ever have writer’s block, and yes, I rarely have the full-blown version. I do, however, experience creative slowdowns, periods where I produce less work than I’d like, or my ideas seem stale, or I feel a lack of interest in writing. This is more dangerous than… Continue reading How I Banish Writer’s Block
I asked writers who’d published their first books of poetry at or beyond the age of fifty to discuss their experiences. Was there any particular reason they’d waited to publish? Did they think there was an advantage to publishing later in life? How had publishing a first book changed their lives? The responses from over… Continue reading Chop Wood, Carry Water: Publishing a First Poetry Book After Fifty
More than two years ago, I started tinkering with a poem about my long drives up and down Interstate Highway 5, drives that began when I was a child and continued, with regularity, until the present day. My first note was an entry in my journal, dated December 15, 2017: “I cross the border going… Continue reading The Making of a Winning Poem: Writing “The State of Jefferson”
Attending an AWP Conference is exhilarating and exhausting. Watching thousands of introverted writers awkwardly networking is, of course, part of the fun; being too overwhelmed to even nod at someone you know is not. At the most recent AWP (Portland 2019) I admit to moments of complete and utter bewilderment, whether I was trying to… Continue reading Getting the Most Out of AWP
In January of this year, I spent four days at a retreat for women entrepreneurs. Located on the Oregon Coast, we were blessed with amazing weather, a lovely beachside house, great food, and each other’s company. I brought my journal, because I always bring it wherever I go. I noticed that most of the other… Continue reading Writing at a Non-Writers’ Retreat
I was reading my Christmas present, The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963, when I came across a mention of syllabic verse. Plath’s poem “Mussel-Hunter at Rock Harbor” is written in stanzas of seven lines, each line containing seven syllables. In a letter to her brother Warren, dated June 11, 1958, she writes about the… Continue reading Syllabic Verse
Two of the books I received for review consideration in 2018 came from poets who live and write in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California: Starshine Road by L.I. Henley, and Waking Life by Cynthia Anderson. Henley writes of growing up in the Mojave, of walking down dirt roads as a child past a house filled… Continue reading The Poetry of Place