WORKS IN PROGRESS
High Midnight, a novel about growing up in the American West
A Hollow, Muscular Organ, a collection of stories and a novella
The Third Law of Motion, a novel about coming-of-age lessons in the 60s
Image and design by Denice Hart
Facing Down the Monsters
“I leaped headlong into the Sea,” wrote Keats on the experience of writing his long poem Endymion, “and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea & comfortable advice.”
For writers, that green shore is a pretty place, a sweet place to hang out. We know its gentle flora and fauna, its bobwhite and dragonflies, its buttercups and soft grass. It is a safe place. The worst that can happen there is an ant or two in the potato salad.
Those who rest on the shore may write some lovely poems, some clever tales, some suitable-for-the-grandchildren recollections. However, it is only by jumping into the deep that we may (sometimes) create fresh, surprising, or profound writing. We may pass seaweed strangely blossoming underwater on our way down; we may encounter an ill-tempered anaconda powerful enough to crush a deer; we may discover odd creations such as the dugong with its front limbs like arms and, at the other end, not legs but a tail. We will find strange beauty, danger, and bizarre connections.
In the depths we may find squid making ink clouds around themselves or white eyeless fish, for some memories want to hide and some images want to be blind.
It is only by jumping into the murky and the unknown that we stand a chance of discovering our truths.
—from Write from Life: Turning Your Personal Experiences into Compelling Stories
Watercolor by Susan Reimer
Photograph by Sally Cullen
—from Galapagos Triptych: Three Ways of Seeing the Galapagos Islands
