Ioway or Bust

One year left. In a scant five days I’ll be back down to Ioway. Am I excited? In some ways. I’m ready for the structure of my teaching and learning, ready for the deadlines of Workshop and for the peculiar atmosphere of Ioway City where all my friends and colleagues are all interested in literature [...]

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The Back of My Hands

Last week, settling down in front of my laptop, trying to think of some kind of Facebook status update, I thought I know these roads like the back of my hands. But I’m becoming tired of Facebook, so I didn’t write anything at all. Then, on Friday, back in the car and driving north to [...]

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Back (In Black)

Alright, I’ve been away from Light Travels Faster Downhill for a period now approaching two months. I have some good reasons: 1.) I’ve been thinking about my stories. A lot. As in, staying up at night, laying in bed, wrestling with imaginary characters and invisible plot lines, etc. In the last three weeks and specifically [...]

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PBS At The Iowa Writer’s Workshop

Tomorrow (Tuesday March 1st) PBS will be filming our workshop. That is to say, Sam Chang’s workshop; twelve students including myself. The class is always conducted in the most dramatic of the Workshop’s spaces: a room with a great circular table and expansive views of the Iowa River. In the early evenings crows gather by [...]

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Sundogs and the American Highway

The easiest thing I suppose, is for people to talk to me about the driving, and they’re always nice and sympathetic. It must be tough they say. So many miles, so many hours. But there really isn’t any other way for us to make this thing work, so I’ve always just pushed through. Done the [...]

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Back To School

Come Monday, I’ll be back on the road. Driving south down to Ioway. What a terrific month it has been. I am ready to get back to my studies, my teaching, my writing, my reading, my friends, and my academic routine. But a month at home with Henry has been amazing. I am already excited [...]

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Grinding Gears, Jillian, and Happy Birthday(s)

2011 looks like insomnia, so far. Up nights, watching documentaries on Netflix. Scribbling down notes for new short stories and stalling out every time I touch my novel(s). No handbook to do this stuff. You just enter a dark tunnel and hope for the best. Hope that the batteries in your flashlight don’t die. That’s [...]

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Genius

Last year at this time, I had about fifteen applications floating around in the United States Postal Service to various and sundry universities and colleges around the country. In the end, most were not interested in me. But luckily, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop was. When I first talked to Sam Chang, I was in denial [...]

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Agent

I met with another agent today. A very nice woman, highly accomplished and influential within the publishing industry. Handed her my manuscript. We had a nice chat. Parted ways. I watched her put my manuscript, my stories, in one of three stacks. Wondering which stack meant what. It’s so hard. I’m SO close. I’m here, [...]

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Workshop Dispatch: The Best Time To Write Letters

It’s almost two o clock in the morning.  The house is quiet.  Henry woke once, around ten.  I tiptoed into his nursery and rocked him back to sleep.  Poor little man is sick.  How frustrating to be sick and not know how to complain.  To tell someone what’s wrong with you. Workshop is on Tuesday [...]

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