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October 2001

I realized that this is what so often happens when we come face to face with some unimaginable horror: we run for help, but no one believes us. No one believes how many species are disappearing, how many prisoners are being tortured, how many women are being broken by self-important men.

Koscinski’s Opening

Koscinski brings another excuse today. Always, he brings an excuse. This morning he tells his teacher Lazlow that the dog ate his hearing aid.

September 2001

One way to love myself is to stand still when sadness comes sweeping in like a storm. This means not judging the storm, and not condemning myself for getting drenched; three-quarters of the world is covered in water.

Realism

About your opening: editors often judge a story by the first paragraph, and yours has no hook. Take the description of the father: his soap-encrusted wedding band, the blue tennis shoes he wears with suit pants and tropical shirts, the fading hair that crests above his forehead — these are all fine, specific details, but they come too soon and contribute little or nothing to the narrative. Always keep in mind that writing fiction is about choices, painful choices.

A Hell Of Mercy

Some Thoughts On Clinical Depression And The Dark Night Of The Soul

And still I persisted in the belief that my condition was manageable, that I was, more or less, steering the careening vehicle of my life. That is, until my mother died, terribly, of stomach cancer, in the winter of my forty-first year. That was when the wheels came off.

She’ll Wrap Her Arms Around Us

The house wasn’t yellow when we moved in, but it needed a fresh coat of paint. I regretted the choice almost immediately. All that yellow made the ramshackle building too bright, too cheerful, too . . . yellow. It hardly looked like the home of a serious little magazine. But, for thirteen years, that’s what it was.

All My Previous Poems

Over and over, / I have submitted poems / to this magazine. / Over and over, / the editor / has rejected them. / Finally, / he accepted / this poem.

— from “this poem”

Promised Land

Having always been drawn toward the mystical and the contemplative, I’d converted to Catholicism three years before, but now I saw it was one thing to be told that death leads to resurrection and another to watch someone you love die in agony.

July 2000

If I’m not too busy to breathe, I’m not too busy to be thankful for breathing. If I’m not too busy to smile at a stranger, I’m not too busy to remember we’re breathing the same air.

Friend Of The Sun