“Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not.” – Ursula K. LeGuin Well, I’m in the thick of the stew now, aren’t I? I’m trying to expel 50,000 words from my brain onto the page by the end of the month for NaNoWriMo and trying hard not to be sucked in to the countdown until the Midterm Elections. By the time you read this, if you read this, We…
This week the Debs are to discuss the books & authors that most influenced us. And this is especially difficult, since I love to read, and I am fond of both fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, forms both hybrid and pure journalism. So many authors, so many books. So little time. But I will try to thank them and tell you why. With regard to my forthcoming debut novel,…
I really want to write a rant to all the devastations of the day: the Kavanaugh vote in the Senate, the FBI’s incomplete investigation, the senator from Maine’s weak speech justifying her vote against women, the Senate’s dismissal and nullification of Dr. Ford’s courage. But I have to write for the Debs, it’s that time of the week where the Debs must cull their thoughts for the topic at hand….
Chronicles of an X-American (part 1) The best training is to read and write, no matter what — Grace Paley I’ve always been a poet, and it’s always some tributary of poetry that I return to when I have my teeth, metaphorically, kicked in. I started writing poems, mostly nature poems, when I turned nine. I was fast with my first drafts and slow to revise. Only my fifth-grade…
The Twice-Born Book: I wrote my first book because I wanted to read it – Toni Morrison I’m a voracious reader. I admit it. I started young – one of my favorite books came in to my possession when I turned nine. A friend of the family gave me Anthony B. Lake’s A Pleasury of Witticisms and Word Play. Inside those pages I learned all about anagrams and palindromes,…
Sometimes I like to sit down and think about all the parallel universes where other Kaitlyns are going about their daily lives having walked down paths wildly divergent from my own. Here’s a peek at a few of those other universes. Before I (TO THE ENDLESS DISAPPOINTMENT OF ADULT KAITLYN) Decided I Hated Science: Kaitlyn Sage Patterson is an equine veterinarian. She lives on a sprawling farm tucked up against…
HAPPY PUB DAY, ABBY! Big congratulations to our very own 2016 Deb Abby Fabiaschi on the release of her wonderful debut novel, I LIKED MY LIFE. I loved every page of this poignant family drama; it is a thought-provoking, sad, important book about love and loss and how one picks up the pieces to move forward after unexpected, inexplicable tragedy. It also shows the value in finding the little bits…
I was an awkward 6th grader, living in Dallas, Texas, when I got what just may be the single most attractive, glamorous invitation of my whole life: I was asked to go on a private plane to Disneyland. It was unthinkable really, way too good to be true. Not only would this be the coolest trip ever, but I had been invited by the coolest girl in my class. When…
Excerpt from REAL LIFE & LIARS: For a time, Van had a poster of his hero taped on his apartment wall. Bob Dylan stared down at him every night and every morning, heavy-lidded, cigarette drooping. Then Van got drunk and whiskey and self-pity one night and ripped it down, and in the blazing light of morning, through his hangover fog, he’d noticed that the paint had faded all around where…
So a song came up in my random lineup today. The song is called “Friends of P.”, and it’s by The Rentals, and the first time I ever heard it was the first semester of my freshman year of college. My roommate always had the college rock station on, so instead of my usual diet of Indigo Girls, Danny Elfman scores, and Sinead O’Connor, I listened to that. Isn’t it…
