My mom died three years ago and long before then, I knew I’d be writing about how it would all go down. Somehow, so did she. I was barely a teen, when after a particularly disturbing episode in our family’s constant chaos, my mother jerked my elbow towards her oversized chest and through her teeth spat, “Don’t you EVER write about this!!”
You asked for them: Those moving, inspiring, thought-provoking keynote and graduation lectures that you couldn’t stop thinking about. At the residencies for the Goddard MFA in Creative Writing program, “Can I get a copy of that?” is an even more common refrain than “Trust the process!” And now, they can be yours. Goddard College is […]
Sassafras Lowrey: these words can’t wait for spell check
(Word Count: 478)
I don’t know why you write, he said (in a text). You don’t believe in anything. But is that true?
I am a would-be artist, for now content in the sadistic pursuit of mastery.
Goddard College MFAW alum John Schmidtke:
“Okay,” I said. “But just in case, what’s the residency’s theme?”
“Lust and fun,” Elena said.
My foot came off the gas a bit.
“Lust and fun?” I asked.
“Yes,” Elena said.
Let me pause right here to confess that while I attended Goddard, lust took over my life.
I cheated on my wife Mary almost every night for two years.

Though the newest version of the Echo is decent, you can get a better response to life if you use your own voice—i.e. the Personal Echo. The Personal Echo is in high demand because it offers the gift of someone else controlling your life, but doing it in a way that feels as if you are talking to yourself. And truly, what writer wouldn’t want that?

I was welcome to stay at her house as long as I wanted, but had to come with her out to the ranch to meet and feed her horse, Kansas.

To blog or not to blog–that is the question, writers. Whether it is nobler to essay than to blog is a serious matter, and not everyone can do it or do it well.Because to do it well, one must face the truth of blogging and accept it: it’s a genre. It has rules. It requires… attention to craft.

I am an unabashed Language Freak. Word Freak. Sentence Freak. Grammar and Punctuation Freak. I am deeply in love with what William Golding called “that massive instrument” the English language. For me putting words down on paper is like playing a finely tuned piano. No wrong notes, please! My instrument is too precious to misuse.