Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
This post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Check out other Hop participants' posts to learn about more aspects of writing craft and business, the third Wednesday of each month except for November and December. If we are writers who care about social justice, we have to interrogate our work. How do... Continue Reading →
It was two and a half years ago that I made my first ever Words Like Trees post, written here in Billings at Christmastime. A three hour drive to Bergen, followed by eighteen hours of airport-hopping, and we reached Billings this time in its brilliant summer heat. Because of the pandemic, we haven't come here... Continue Reading →
Spurred on by an IB Extended Essay I am supervising, a couple of months ago I waded precipitously into Gayatri Spivak's 1988 essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" In this vitally important essay on the West's erasure of non-Western women, Spivak makes the case that colonial ideology stops Westerners from knowing anything about the most disenfranchised... Continue Reading →
I thought the last few weeks, with IB exams finished, wrapping up loose ends of the year, I thought the last weeks would be calm and quiet. I thought I would have time for myself, for writing and thinking, exercise and sitting doing nothing. There certainly were a few calm days, but things have reared... Continue Reading →
As the end of May approaches, I have been springing ahead to try to meet my monthly writing goals. I set these goals at the beginning of the year in order to keep myself making progress on my writing journey. I posted an update in January, but the months have been racing by and it... Continue Reading →
Last weekend, my husband and I took a short hike up the first slope of the mountain next to campus, to where a lookout point shows campus like a toy village, to where the valley as a whole structure becomes visible, and the lip of distant mountains, not visible from the valley floor, peaks over... Continue Reading →
We have catapulted into spring this week, with warmth and sun bounding forth. The trees, which have been holding their thousand green fists tight for weeks against the cold, they now are opening their fingers. The waterfalls have been reduced to trickles. The students are abuzz with life (exams are nearly finished; last night was... Continue Reading →
I'm forever more a planner when I write. Perhaps not down to the minute detail, and certainly my plans change as I go along, but I like to have a basic outline of plot events and thematic points that I expect the story to take up. I make long documents for planning, pages and paragraphs... Continue Reading →
I'm writing this shorter post this week on the first of May, a bright and sunny Saturday in this string we have been having of sun and brilliant blue sky days, despite continued cold. Today, I'll be joining the first year students for the yearly hike up Jarstadheia, the local mountain, about 1900 feet. So... Continue Reading →
Yesterday evening, students gathered together for the annual Poetry Slam event. It isn't really a poetry slam. It's something brilliant and beautiful in a different way. Our students come from about ninety countries, and the vast majority have learned English as an additional language. Unfortunately in an English-medium school, the staggering linguistic diversity of our... Continue Reading →
"Happily ever after" is an age-old trope, and we know that reality is subtler than that. The ending of a story does not mean the rest of life will run smoothly. But a happily-ever-after ending makes sense in fiction: because the story at some point has to end, and an ending that reads, "And life... Continue Reading →
