Month: December 2024

The obligatory end-of-year wrap-up post you’ve been waiting for

The year in writing, recognition, loss, and life

If nothing else, 2024 for me was a year of transition and disruption. And — I hope — a year I learned to be more grateful and empathetic.

After 40 years of full-time work, much of it in academia, I entered a new phase of life last January. Some call it retirement, but it has hardly been that. My pursuit of creative writing and some freelance work has kept me busy enough. In addition, my wife and I and our cat had a couple of health scares that made us reevaluate our values and gave us greater insight into the workings of the U.S. health care system, the good, bad, and ugly of it. We also mourned the passing of a few friends from our church family and continue to honor their memory.

In other words, a lot of life happened in 2024. Here are some highlights from the year:

Continue reading “The obligatory end-of-year wrap-up post you’ve been waiting for”

Friday Five: top 5 writing tips from literary experts

What some of this year’s ‘Friday Five’ participants shared with me

Over the past year, I’ve invited dozens of writers, editors, and others in the literary/writing/publishing community to take part in a “Friday Five” feature. This involves a five-question email interview with the subjects (see links to all interviews). One question I ask of all interviewees is, “What advice do you have for other writers or aspiring writers?” I do this for selfish reasons, because I’m always looking for ideas and inspiration. But I hope the responses also help others who are wanting to improve their writing.

For this end-of-year piece, I’ve selected five bits of advice from the nineteen interviews of 2024. Here they are:

Continue reading “Friday Five: top 5 writing tips from literary experts”

Silence behind me, silence before me

Some thoughts on writing the end of a thing, inspired by one of my favorite novels of 2024

One of my favorite novels of 2024 is Martyr!, by Kaveh Akbar. It is the story of a twentysomething poet and recovering alcoholic named Cyrus (Karoosh in Persian). When he was just an infant, Cyrus immigrated to the U.S. with his father after his mother was killed when the plane she was on was shot down over the Persian Gulf . Cyrus becomes obsessed with martyrs and martyrdom, and travels from his Indiana home to Brooklyn to meet an Iranian-American artist, Orkideh, who has terminal cancer and is living out her last days in an art museum for her final art exhibit.

I want to share one passage from Martyr! that triggered in me some thoughts about the writing process and its mysteries:

Continue reading “Silence behind me, silence before me”

Friday Five: winter solstice reads

There’s something about this time of year that makes me want to spend more time with a book. Maybe it’s the shorter days and lengthening hours of darkness, which translate into less time outdoors and more time inside. Or maybe it’s the chill in the late autumn air, the bare trees, the transition into midwinter, and the weariness that arrives with the end of a long year.

Whatever it is that puts me in the mood to read, I’m thinking I’m not alone and that you, too, might be looking for some worthwhile reads. With that in mind on this winter solstice eve, I offer you five pieces that celebrate the coming day, our shortest of the year in the northern hemisphere. So build a fire, grab a cup of coffee or hot cocoa or mulled cider, crack open that screen, and enjoy these reads.

Continue reading “Friday Five: winter solstice reads”

Friday Five: my year in books

Because everyone needs another year-end ‘best of’ list

In addition to wanting to reboot my creative writing in 2024, I wanted to increase my consumption of literary fiction. (I say “consumption” because I listen to audiobooks about as much as I read books in print or e-books. And some ableist book snobs people don’t consider audiobooks to be on par with their printed counterparts. So consumption it is.)

I’ve been an avid, but by no means voracious, reader since college. Over the past decade or so, however, I’ve gravitated toward more “practical” and career-oriented reading. I focused mainly on books about leadership, marketing, productivity, organizational dynamics, and such. That focus left little time or energy for more creative, recreational reading.

This year, my reading took a much-needed turn. I read (consumed) a lot of fiction, literary and otherwise, in 2024, as well as some good non-fiction works including history, spirituality, and books about the writing craft. I also re-read some dust-gatherers in my home library, or listened to them. All told, I consumed over 70 titles. You can find them listed on my reading log. My to-be-read (TBR) list continues to expand, and my home-office bookshelves, which I’d purged soon after retiring (three big paper boxes’ worth went to the local library), are beginning to regain a semblance of cozy clutter, even as my Kindle app fills to the brim with digital reads. Audiobooks allowed me to be a more efficient consumer of writing, as I could listen to a book while cleaning, cooking, working out, and driving.

On to my selections:
Continue reading “Friday Five: my year in books”