A common theme among writers that I admire is their descriptions of encounters with wild animals. Brian Doyle has a great book of essays that is focused on this theme Children and Other Wild Animals. I love his essays on fishers, sturgeon, and falcons. Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek describes waiting and watching […]

I love writing on writing. I mean this in most ways this can mean, though not particularly in the grading papers vein. I love underlining things or circling or starring or creating little boxes around particular paragraphs. It’s a way of collecting sentences, of owning certain insights.

There are many variations of the “You are […]

This is a story of loss, of sombreros, of summer, of friendship, of steelhead, and early morning coffee. Mostly it’s the story of a plastic travel mug that I dropped one summer morning while standing knee deep in in the Deschutes River. I was wearing a sombrero, and hoping to catch a few morning fish. […]

All you care about is reading. I’ve been accused of that, and worse. Reading is a special kind of interaction BLAH BLAH BLAH. I love those blahs, but I also appreciate alternatives to reading, other ways to get at similar results. Reading, at best, is a conversation and an inspiration and a way of receiving […]

“O, GOD, THY SEA IS SO GREAT AND MY BOAT IS SO SMALL”

– Breton Fisherman’s Prayer

I want a painting that portrays this. Big ocean. Dramatic clouds. Swirling colors of joy and despair. Small boat. I ran across this prayer in some book, and I keep running across it. Apparently JFK had a plaque […]

Or, close to one sitting. I don’t think I have ever staved off my bladder or appetite for an entire book. Maybe what I mean is several sittings in one day. I believe that there is a book for everyone that if you found it you would sit down and read it in one sitting. […]

George Orwell said unflattering things about the word utilize. The use of utilize says to me that 1.) the writer has not read and reread Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” and that 2.) they didn’t read and reread their paper at the sentence level to consider each word. I think the word use […]

The funniest thing I have ever done was shake a half-full water bottle. This was my son’s first laugh. For a few weeks this was the funniest thing in his world. I tried this in front of a class full of seniors, and they didn’t laugh at all. Peek-a-Boo works because the recipient of the […]

Unfinished song by John  + unfinished song by Paul + multiple instrumental and tonal changes + a lingering last note = “A Day In the Life” by the Beatles.

I love this song. It’s the last song on the Sgt. Pepper’s Album. It’s downright cute to read that references to smoking, dreaming, and lines […]

Pine cones are tiny sculptures. They are solid, more permanent than flowers, and will be intact much longer than most people’s relationships. And like relationships, and people, and snowflakes, they are so individually different, even among cones of the same species. Compare a Doug Fir cone to a Sugar Pine or a Sequoia or Redwood […]