Anna, I like that picture you sent me of a wooden chair spotted with pink petals in a misty and abandoned parking lot. I wonder if this is how the healing begins. Sitting in a fog alone. They say that if you recite an effective mantra over and over again during intense meditation sessions you can transcend consciousness. But I’ve never doubted for one second…
Untitled Ink Drawing
This artwork appears in our Fall 2013 issue (Vol. 60.1).
Sixteen Cans of Pineapple by Cathy Adams
An excerpt… When Kate opened the cabinet doors she saw nothing but pineapple, can after can of pineapple. She had been there the week before dropping off her mother’s dry cleaning, but she didn’t think to look in the kitchen cabinets. She held a door open in each hand, counting. “You have sixteen cans of pineapple.” “I do?” Stella put her wooden spoon down and…
Finishing the Writer’s To-Do List
My to-do list goes something like this: #1 Wash the dishes. #2 Clean the litter box. #3 Write my final paper. #4 Publish 100 amazing books, and be the best writer ever. #5 Live happily ever after. Let’s be honest: You’re reading this blog because you’re a writer, too, and you probably have a similar, absurd to-do list. But I love writers because we’re outrageous…
Yucca Blooming
An excerpt… I was a tourist. I was a tourist on a sheep farm in Indiana. I was a tourist in a man’s bed. I was a tourist in the world of rules and business casual and strategizing for the greater good. I was a tourist in my body, now wobbly and foreign; it was difficult to walk and think simultaneously. It was difficult to…