Field Notes

How do the horrors of the past impart meaning onto our present selves? How do we sift through rotten carcasses in order to find what is growing underneath? How do we explore that which chills us in the way that we read, in the way that we write, in the way that we live?

In these times, I turn to the writers whose words hold the force of an army—the revolutionaries who have the power to change minds and elicit action with their written work.

In my dark corner, I lived a story that held a stigma, a story few people can hear without cringing at the thought of such a low. But it was just one of many possible manifestations of alienation and one of many stories people are reluctant to hear.

Writing is rarely seamless. Though, every now and then, a poem will come to me in a rush: demanding to be written down—line after line—cramping my fingers into submission.

The dragon the hero slays at the end of the story is the fear, the pain that is keeping them back from what they are called to do in this life.

These books need not stand for anything in particular, but they always touch down somewhere deep: taking gentle care to remind me that humanity is complex and entertainment is not simply a distraction, but the measure of what we have come to value.

I have no doubt that some artists really do create spontaneously. That is not me. And that is not most writers I know.

I didn’t come to writing school to pursue a topic, but to pursue writing, as a craft. From one sentence, I wanted to build the next. I came here to dress myself up in literature. If words were my bones, their cadence my muscle, my body’s movement would be voice, pure voice (okay, my voice).