Mercredi, or Day of the Dead

Having your work critiqued is like going to a funeral. A funeral for an old person with a bad, painful cancer, where everyone’s like, “I”m glad that’s over. It’s all for the best.” I have the same need for ritual, and the same shaky desperation to affirm my own aliveness afterward. I really did have […]

Days 2/3 (Not two-thirds)

The important thing is that my teacher is nice. You didn’t care about niceness, and then you do. Then it’s really all that matters. Coffee and work, lunch and reading, class. Day two I snagged some people to have dinner with– long, easy, witty, long-lost relations banter we had over wine and martinis and food […]

Meet ‘n’ Greet

The strangest thing is that there was no booze at the opening reception. I mean, I don’t want to stereotype here, but writers, traditionally, are drinkers. And officially, as everyone knows, whiskey is our thing, although other drinks are occasionally permitted. We meet in a spankin’ new moderny hotel on the little pedestrian alleyway. Of […]

Niche

There was a hawk sitting on the window air conditioner, three stories up. There was me. But otherwise the place was dead.I kind of figured there’d be a lot of liquor bottles, but mostly the empties had held water or pop. Westport Junior High has been closed for a year. Across the street is Westport […]