Truth and Lies: Where to Draw the Line?
I’m still sorting through my reactions to the controversy emerging around Three Cups of Tea (co-authored by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin). The book has inspired many and been a platform for raising millions of dollars for the Central Asia Institute ( I recommend reading Jon Krakauer’s full allegations (pdf) against the book and [...]
Athletic Writing
Writing Inspiration comes this week from Arundhati Roy as interviewed by Amitava Kumar for Guernica Magazine. I admire so much of what she says about writing, politics, the relation between the two…
Another Poem Finds a Home
I had my first poem published in January and am proud to announce that another poem, “What the Photo Shows,” has been accepted for publication….
How I Grabbed My Poetry Career by the Horns
I’m honored that my first poem ever to be published — “In the Flat Field” — is in The High Desert Journal. It’s a fabulous regional publication that showcases writing rooted in the Interior West of North America….
Waking to the New Year in a Treehouse
I woke to the first day of 2007 in a treehouse in Northern Laos. That set a standard for New Year’s celebrations that I’ll probably never live up to again. It was just me, my partner Jerry, and all the wildlife of Bokeo Nature Reserve. We could have joined eight other travelers at the main treehouse for a night of revelry, but we longed for solitude….
Blog Your Way to Success With Hairy Legs
I’ve been blogging for about a year now and am finally discovering the secret to building an audience: hairy legs, lots and lots of hairy legs….
Common Indian Toad: Species of the Week
The garden is in now, so it’s time to get back to working on my ethnographic memoir on living as a family member and anthropologist in Nepal. I’m currently revising the chapter where I describe an encounter with an enormous hibernating toad. My six-year old son and his Nepali uncle and cousin almost hoed it in half as they weeded around a lemon tree. My son called me from my academic writing to see it. I picked the sluggish toad out of its burrow and prodded it to hop off to a safer spot. Then I decided to pitch in to help prepare a vegetable garden and discovered a passion for growing food (and a lack of passion for academia) that continues to this day.
The Clade
This week I began cross-posting my “Species of the Week” series at The Clade. Since Rachel Shaw is already writing a wonderful column of the same name, I changed the name of my column there to “Biodiversions” (thanks again to Rachel for suggesing the new name). According to one of the founders, Chris Clarke: The [...]
Lunacy
In grade school, I used to love those assignments where the teacher gave us ten vocabulary words and said we had to use all of them in a story. Those were good times, and I’ve already tried to revive them here in prose and poetry. Today, the NaPoWriMo prompt at Read Write Poem invited us [...]
Ocotillo: Species of the Week
I suppose it’s inevitable that a temperate forest-dweller like me would be amazed by the oddities that grow in the desert. It’s been two weeks since I returned home to Portland, Oregon from a brief trip to Arizona, and I’m still sighing over the blooms I saw in the desert…
Protected: So We Decided to Move Inland: A Sestina
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Witnessing
It’s wonderful to have more and more pieces published online and in-print. But it also feels a bit disembodied. If I’m lucky, I may exchange a few emails or have a phone conversation with an editor. I never meet the others whose pieces share the same binding with me. It’s all understandable given how busy the world is, but still odd….
hummingbird haiku
I wasn’t fast enough to catch them but they were everywhere. Really. (Superstition Mountains, Arizona, February 2009) ______________________________________ hummingbird haiku gutsy grape gorget tiny feathers like chain mail – nectar defender ___________________________ Day 4: NaPoWriMo (choose the name of a paint color and free write) and Poetic Asides (animals). __________________________________________________________________________
California Condor: Species of the Week
For writers, the birds inside the head can sometimes be as lively as the ones outside the window. I’ve had a twenty-two pound bird with a ten-foot wing span squawking and flapping in my imagination for awhile now…
If I Can’t Laugh, I Don’t Want to Be in Your Revolution
“If you’re still laughing, you’re not getting it.” I heard a respected elder in the environmental movement make these comments several weeks ago. I bow to the wisdom of all our elders: Thoreau, Leopold, Muir, Lao Tzu. But this appeal for us to stop laughing and get on with the environmentalist revolution bothered me. I [...]
Nature Writing
I’ve published (or will soon have published) six pieces over the last year of full-time writing, but the lyric essay – “A Nature Lover’s Phobia” – posted online in Fringe Magazine: The Environment Issue yesterday makes me particularly happy. I have wanted to be a nature writer since childhood. I thought becoming a zoologist would [...]
Publication
The Gettysburg Review, Spring 2009 Flu has laid me low for the last few days. But getting the Spring 2009 edition of The Gettysburg Review cheered me. It includes “Natural Births” — a chapter from the book I’m working to finish. This is my first piece of literary nonfiction in print (I’ve had a [...]
