Author: admin

  • Walking the West Highland Way

    Having enjoyed and endured twenty-five years of each other’s company in marriage, we thought it was time for a treat and rewarded ourselves with a trip to Scotland and a walk on the West Highland Way with our kids. I wanted one of those luxurious hikes where you spend the night at a cozy inn…

  • Exchange Visits

    My mother and my daughter left this week on a two-week trip to Germany, which has me remembering my own trip to Germany with my Oma. I was a year younger than my daughter is now, a high school junior rather than a recent graduate. The first part of the trip was a school trip–our…

  • Stretching

    Thinking it would do me good to stretch my creative muscles in a different way, I signed up for an 8-week playwriting workshop this spring, taught by Paul Calandrino at Oregon Contemporary Theatre. Last time I tried to write a play, I was in high school. But I’ve read and seen and studied and taught…

  • Resale Re-inscription (dedicatoria)

    At the used bookstore the other day, waiting for the staff to pick over my only moderately delectable sack of we-don’t-want-them-anymore tomes, I wandered through the aisles reading novel blurbs and tidbits and first pages, sampling sections I often skip–browsing, like a deer in a tulip bed. In one of those sections, I pulled off…

  • Greening

    It is the most beautiful of spring days, Friday the 13th, a good fortune day–why not? The view from my study window is green. Maple green, rhododendron green, cedar green. Most of them two-tone this time of year, old growth against new. I’ve been reading about neuroscience and gratitude and Greece; I’ve been writing stories…

  • What I’m Reading (February)

     La Siberia, Cristina Siscar (a novella–that of the title–and stories). I found this collection in my search to read more about Patagonia. These are stories about travelers in Patagonia, Amsterdam, Valparaiso, locals and foreigners adrift or stranded, sometimes physically, sometimes in memory. There are some wonderful translation moments embedded in the stories, and rich, perplexing…

  • What I’m reading (January)

    La Virgen Cabeza, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (what a great name, no?). One of the writers who leapt to mind for her when I asked Angélica Gorodsicher last October, “who else should I read?” A striking, unexpected voice, just enough left unexplained, left for the reader to assemble. Fast moving, abrasive yet sympathetic. And having…

  • Can a great story start with a salad?

    Alcohol. Because a great story never starts with a salad. I noticed the sign outside a bar in my neighborhood. I was jogging, so I didn’t have a camera, and when I thought to go back for a photo, an announcement of the weekly special had taken its place. But it struck me as an…

  • Navigational Accents (Last day in Buenos Aires)

    I saw exactly one woman cab driver in Buenos Aires, the morning of our last day (a day reserved for an art museum and a nice lunch, before an overnight flight). I had planned to walk a bit further before flagging a cab–save a few pesos, get some exercise in anticipation of hours and hours…

  • What I’m Reading (August)

    Or, Summer Reading II. With summer nearly at an end, here’s some of what I’ve been reading. It doesn’t quite match up with my earlier photo, because other books always nudge or muscle or edge their way in. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. I found Wolf Hall oddly dull–there was a tedium to…