January 2012 was a kind month. Kind. It isn’t often a person thinks of January as kind. Here in Portland, Oregon, January is typically a long rainy month of long nights. Fortunately, the nights at the end of the month are shorter, significantly so, than the nights at the beginningContinue Reading
As silly as this is going to sound, here it is: it took me more time to simply sit down and start writing this story than it’s going to take me to write it. The very notion of this piece began as a thought on a walk home from theContinue Reading
I can see the scene already. The poet sits in the boat, and he’s already recounting the recent battle, he adds it to the canon of other battles, those of their fathers, grandfathers. Yeah, whatever, right? I can see Rance Poole on the other side of the campfire as weContinue Reading
Fuck. That’s the only real way to describe it, this feeling, this novel, and this disposition. I’ve made a few really, really big mistakes. First, I waited too long to begin Errors of Fabric. After all, I wrote the other nine novels one right after the other, and now I’veContinue Reading
If I may digress into a stupid analogy for a moment, let’s consider gin. The writing of a novel is like drinking a shot of warm gin. If you can drink one, you can drink ten. Novels, yeah, if you can write one, you can write ten. I say thisContinue Reading
I really can’t recall the impetus of why I decided to write. For me, as I suspect for many writers, it started very early. I do remember writing very short stories about monsters for my friend Doug when we were in the fifth or sixth grade. I didn’t particularly careContinue Reading
In this endless world of the written word, I wonder how many characters it would take, how many words, sentences, long streams of stories to circle the globe? And furthermore, how many books it’s going to take to quench this thirst? And when I think about being thirsty, I justContinue Reading
For some reason, I tore through the winter reading list. I’m sure there are a few aspects to this. I know that the more one reads, the more one wants to read. It’s also a result of practice. The more one reads, the better one gets at it. Even so,Continue Reading
Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Vintage: New York, 1997. Saterstrom, Selah. The Meat and Spirit Plan. Coffeehouse Press. Minneapolis, 2007. Murakami, Haruki. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Vintage: New York, 1991. McManus, John. Born on a Train. Picador: New York, 2003. Murakami, Haruki. Dance DanceContinue Reading
It’s a peaceful morning. I sit with my entire day ahead of me. Speakers, set at a low volume, hum with Lightning Hopkins and Skip James. The coffee in my cup is the way I like it, strong. Oatmeal, for my morning meal cooks slowly on the stove. I amContinue Reading