Since I began this blog sometime in May, I have been working on a new novel—well, I am always at work on a new novel, but I thought it was high time I mentioned this particular one—called Spuyten Duyvil. The title is taken from a place just north...
When a Stranger Says WE
It has become my habit, as summer deepens, to exercise early in the morning when it is still cool. I head up the hill behind our house which, at its peak, offers a spectacular view out to the coastal range. On my way up I usually pass a woman who...
Vacation!
Dear Entangled Writer Readers, I am going on vacation for the next two weeks, so do not expect another posting until mid July (yes, I know you’re all waiting with baited breath :-)). Who knows what will be on my mind then, but I expect to...
David Foster Wallace’s Words
It is not uncommon for me, in the course of writing a novel, to find myself gravitating to one word which I use unwittingly over and over. Skud. Cleave. Oneiric. Certain words, at certain times in my life, hold an irresistible appeal. I like the...
The Habit of Art
I have been writing for more years than I like to tally; as a child and teenager I wrote poetry, as a young woman I wrote plays and screenplays, and now in middle-age I write fiction. Early on I realized that if the writing was going to happen I...
Humility
A month ago I returned from a trip to Zimbabwe. I was visiting an amazing young woman, Jennifer Kyker, an ethnomusicologist who has been visiting Zimbabwe for the past fifteen years (since she was fifteen) and has started a nonprofit organization...
Joining the human race
I can identify the exact moment when I became a card-carrying member of the human race, the moment when I understood that the 99.5% (or 99.9% depending on the study you look at) of genetic material I share with most people is vastly more...
BABIES
Last week I went with my partner—okay, “husband” according to Facebook, but that is a socially constructed falsehood; we aren’t really, in the eyes of the “law” married—to see the movie BABIES. My partner and I do not have a child together, and...
Reading in a Foreign Country
I am recently back from a trip to Zimbabwe where I went to visit a friend and learn about her non-profit organization, Tariro, that helps keep teenage girls in school. It was my first trip to Africa, and as I was packing I became somewhat—okay...
Why Entangled?
Welcome to the inaugural posting of THE ENTANGLED WRITER blog… Who am I? Why entangled? “It’s possible to link together two quantum particles … in a special way that makes them effectively two parts of the same entity. You...