On Writing
A fondless farewell, una búsqueda sin fin, and a reminder of the round-and-round of life
A few January notes. Bye bye, Trump I woke up at 5:00 am on January 21 without an alarm and an hour and a half before my usual time to spill out of bed after another night of ragged sleep. I realized I was up in time to see Trump’s departure from the White House.…
Read MoreWhere resolution meets writing even when my resolution isn’t about writing
I have one firmly defined and achievable resolution, and I have one that is maybe not a resolution after all, but some vague hope. But I’m making a connection between that resolution and that hope, because I’m making a connection between that resolution and everything in my life. My resolution: To be able to have…
Read MoreDonna’s Excellent 24-Hour Literary Adventure
Jane Hodges picked me up at 1:30 last Thursday afternoon at my North Seattle apartment to drive me to Mineral, a small community in the foothills of Mount Rainier. In its Wikipedia entry, Mineral’s amenities are listed as “a post office, two churches, one general store, one tavern, a log lodge (in the National Register…
Read MoreA conversation about power, community, and art with CMarie Fuhrman and Bryan Fry
For years now, I’ve been going to the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference at Centrum. It’s a ferry ride and a scenic drive 60 miles from Seattle. Located on a peninsula on a larger peninsula, the surroundings are beautiful, the faculty stellar, and the participants fun to be around. Every year, I meet remarkable people. Though…
Read MoreCoincidence, Luck, Magic (and My Mother) at Hedgebrook
Recently, on the third anniversary of my mother’s death, I went to Hedgebrook to have some writing time as well as to teach at the Summer Salon, a day of small-group writing workshops given in the Hedgebrook cottages. Three years earlier, I had been scheduled to do the same, but the week before my departure…
Read MoreArt and Nonfiction and Books I Want to Read: Finding Inspiration at the NonfictioNOW Conference
“We are essayists. We can make a difference,” Stephanie Elizondo Griest said in her electrifying keynote talk that capped the three-day NonfictioNOW Conference in Phoenix recently. I’m a fiction writer. But I went – an interloper, a mole – to glean what I could about writing essays. Not to forsake fiction. I’ll always wants to…
Read MoreBorder crossings, mangoes, ghosts, and readings with famous people
Well, summer is officially over and, as usual, it went by in a blur. But in that blur, there were some, as Virginia Woolf described them, “moments of being,” things felt intensely and shot through with awareness. In June, my daughter Natalie and I spent her birthday in Tijuana and Rosarito, sampling street tacos, drinking…
Read MoreThe residency is a classroom at Mineral School
I’m at Mineral School, an artist residency in the town of Mineral, WA (population 200), just off the highway that leads to Mount Rainier. My writing studio and my living space is an old classroom. That’s 800 square feet of classroom, bigger than the apartment my husband and I recently moved into. If I knew…
Read MoreBody image, identity, and sisterhood
Thanks to a grant from 4Culture, I’ve made progress on my next novel. The working title is OFELIA AND NORMA, based on the main characters. The novel grew from my short story “Strong Girls,” which was first published in Calyx in 2008, anthologized in 2016, and included in my short story collection HOLA AND GOODBYE,…
Read MoreWhen a person of color tells conference organizers their conference is too white
You could say I asked for it, that I knew what I was getting into. Still, I went. To the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference. I wrote about it in a previous post. I’d long known about the conference. And I’d long wanted to experience San Miguel de Allende, its picturesque cobblestone streets, its…
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