Hey, quick story question. I’m revising a story today, and the biggest problem my critique group had with it last time was too much backstory dragging down the pacing. I’ve completely reorganized, and I’m going to paste the first several revised paragraphs here — if you feel like it, it’d help me to know if […]
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Warning: serious navel-gazing follows. Everyone who has to go in to work at essential jobs at the moment, putting themselves at risk, and also everyone who was laid off and is worried about finding work, really just everyone, please feel free to skip this. *** I’m six weeks into shelter-in-place. That’s a bit longer than
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Another scene written, and this story is starting to take a shape. Good. Afternoon for e-mail and teaching prep, I think, and some more mask sewing, and maybe pruning a tree — then hopefully back to write another scene this evening. ***** “Three nights they’d been battering their heads against the problem now. Three nights
Another Scene Written Read More »
This morning’s sewing was space masks, going out in the treat boxes for tomorrow. I’ve discovered that Jane Austen movies make EXCELLENT company for sewing masks — there’s something that’s just perfect about them. Partly it’s the reliance on witty dialogue, so you can listen to that while looking at what you’re sewing, and just
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We decide to try a Zoom call, a craft-and-chat with friends and acquaintances and internet associates — all are welcome in pandemic times — they are embroidering and knitting and chatting; I am ironing. Ironing for hours, going through the stash of fabric, new-washed and pre-shrunk. Our washing machine has broken and we don’t want
I wanted to take a moment to thank editor-in-chief Anu Mahadev and the whole Jaggery literary magazine team, for managing to put together a bright new issue in the midst of all this chaos. None of our staff are paid (though our authors are) — Jaggery is a labor of South Asian and diaspora literary love, operating
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(I’ve never felt the need to put a content note on a poem before, but this one may be rough for folks. Feel free to skip.) ***** Pandemic Time I’ve never lived through a war but I imagine time moves differently for those on the front lines (long, tense stretches of preparation and boredom, punctuated
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For the record, I suspect a TON of faculty are probably feeling a lot of shock, inadequacy, tech fear, and performance anxiety right now, along with all the rest of the coronavirus stress of the general populace. I know basically what I need to do to teach a couple remote classes, and I’ve been bizarrely
Going remote, and meeting online Read More »
So, I think I’m ready to talk a little about this new project that crystallized last week. (Photo of dragonfruit chocolate bars ‘crystallized’ for inspiration.) There are multiple elements coming together in this, things I’ve been working on and thinking about for a long time. I’m still not positive of what the final shape
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I’m applying for a grant that asks for my hometown as part of the application. I don’t know what exactly they mean by that. I think I put the place where I grew up (New Britain, CT), but I could also put where I was born (Colombo, Sri Lanka). Hm.
