she’d found inspiration once, along the riverwalk. moved here to be closer to it. three years later, inspiration left her, as well as job satisfaction, direction, the man she loved and her older brother. gone. as though she’d never known them. she walked along the river, despaired, exhausted, casting angry glances at the water reflecting […]

one. the words will not come. i’m a member of a critique group that meets regularly on wednesdays, and over the past two months, i have taken a total of four pages of the novel that has been in inconsistent progress since january of nineteen ninety-fucking-seven. i know. I KNOW. i suck. we’ll get to […]

some twelve years ago, while hiding out in academia recovering from three dramatic events that occurred within a twelve month period, the greatest of which was the death of my older brother, i took a creative nonfiction writing course in which we were to write responses to the stories we read. one of those stories […]

a few weeks ago, i had the pleasure of interviewing a professor at the university of texas at san antonio. that same institution to which i’d run in the months following the demise of a relationship with the only man who’s ever really mattered to me (he mattered too much, which terrified me, and i […]

i attended a writing workshop in houston this morning. for one of the exercises, we were to grab an object from a ziploc bag and write something about it. we weren’t supposed to be too choosy. so i reached into the bag, turned my head so that i couldn’t focus on the contents at all, […]

where i was born: texas city.where i live: the woodlands.current weather conditions: seventy-two degrees. clear sky. no rain in the past twenty-four hours.opinion of the current weather conditions: it’s nice out. in another month i won’t be able to say that. and we could use some rain. i mean, we just got some the other […]

ABBESS:   And thereof came it that the man was mad.  The venom clamors of a jealous woman  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.  It seems his sleeps were hindered by thy railing, And thereof comes it that his head is light. Thou sayst his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings; Unquiet meals […]

you should treat an essay like a mathematical equation and less like a blank canvas upon which you’ve to heap five hundred empty words. it’s simple, really. you need approximately twenty-five sentences. the length of those sentences, of course, will vary based on what it is needing to be said. and this number is assuming […]

the town celebrated emily dickinson’s life tonight at a small pub on the square. the room was filled with scholarly types, girls and boys young and old. i clapped as each approached the stage. i clapped after they read another poet’s work. i clapped after they read their own, even though i didn’t think much of […]

i am a mass of boiling liquidcaptured and corked in amber glasssometimes, the liquid seeps outslides down the curves, spills onto the floorsometimes, the cork popsthe bottle burstsliquid spews onto everything within reacheverything that matterseverything that doesn’ti am both villain and victimirrelevant, monstrousdeceptively sofor my smile radiates such lightrecalls the warmth of the sunyet my […]