My very first semester in college, I was offered an internship at a daily newspaper. I turned it down, rather piously as I recall. I was majoring in English, not journalism. I was going to be a fiction writer. Why would I want to write daily news? Ironically, ten or so years after turning down […]
Epiphany Ferrell
On Reading Challenges
On her Facebook page, author Ania Ahlborn confessed feeling baffled by people who read more than a dozen books a month. (Did you notice the name drop? Yeah, I don’t know her IRL, though.) Her “confusion” stems only partly from the mere fact of time and how does anyone have that much. Mostly, she wonders […]
Does This Book Spark Joy?
At about 2 a.m., my life partner, Tim, smelled smoke. Our main source of heat is a wood stove. He went outside and looked at the chimney, smoking lightly as it should be. He checked the exterior walls near the chimney for signs of heat. Nothing. There was a faint curl of smoke where the […]
Once Upon a Time There Was a Girl Who
I grew up knowing my father was maybe a Gypsy, the kind that travelled around Ireland with beautiful spotted horses and painted caravan wagons. Or maybe my mother, like Janet of Carterhaugh, met Tam Lin in the forest and battled for him with the Queen of Fairies. The government told me she was 32, he […]
