My sister played in her last high school volleyball game this weekend. I passed up on the Oregon State vs. Arizona state football game for it, but I was glad to be there anyways and see my family. My brother is a photographer and he positioned himself on the opposite side of us in the [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘writing’
October 31, 2008
Graduate School and Becoming a Writer
I finally decided where I’m going to apply to graduate school. I want to get my Master of Fine Arts in writing. It’s a terminal degree so you can teach writing in college with it. It will allow me to focus on writing for a few years while giving me the credentials to teach it [...]
October 21, 2008
Maybe Then
I have stacks and stacks of books I can’t seem to open. I have pages and pages of stories I can’t seem to finish. I have a Bible I move from backpack to chair to desk that isn’t read. I have graduate schools I haven’t applied to. I have boxes I haven’t unpacked. I have [...]
September 8, 2008
For Writers, Readers, and Everyone Else 009
Image Journal has a couple of short-stories that impressed me. Tony Woodlief’s “Name” is about a Vietnamese prisoner of the Khmer Rouge, who is thought to be a spy. The other is Geoff Wyss‘ “Child of God” about a Catholic high school teacher who is upset about the dismissal of a student for being pregnant. [...]
September 6, 2008
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Home by Marilynne Robinson is the same setting from her Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead, but told from a different perspective. This time from John Ames’ good friend the Reverend Boughton’s daughter Glory. A woman who has returned to Gilead, Iowa to take care of her ailing father. Her delinquent older brother Jack soon returns home for the [...]
September 3, 2008
Christian News Northwest Highlights
As an avid reader of Christian News Northwest I decided I’d highlight some of its articles. I usually read it because I’m at work and I have nothing to do, but I always find something that either irks me or interests me that I want to share. And until they use my idea to improve [...]
September 3, 2008
For Writers, Readers, And Everyone Else 008
• Subtlety in fiction.
• Zondervan’s first novel competition. I wish I had 75,000 words written.
• Writing workshop pet-peeves.
• Why Jodi Picoult writes.
• Oregon Christian Writer’s one day conference at Multnomah is October 18th.
July 22, 2008
The Place Where They Meet
It’s the first day of vacation Bible school (why are school and vacation together in the same phrase?) and we’re sitting in a circle and I’m counting to ten while the third and fourth graders reach down to touch their toes and I notice a puddle forming under one of the boys. When I stand [...]
July 21, 2008
This is Madness
One of my favorite parts of the movie 300 is at the beginning when the Persian messenger rides into Sparta asking for “Earth and water,” representing their submission to the god-king Xerxes. When Leonidas pulls a sword on the messenger, the Persian yells, “This is madness,” to which Leonidas states, “This is Sparta!” and then [...]
