I spent a good chunk of the 1980s listening to Prince, Madonna, and Duran Duran, puffing up my bangs, feathering the sides of my hair, crushing on Tommy Howell, wearing leg warmers, reading Sweet Valley High books, and watching certain films—Flashdance, The Pirate Movie, Airplane!—over and over again. Omnipresent in my tween years was something else, not so much a sight as a collection of distinct scents, the clean note of lavender, the heady sweetness of rose, the spiciness of pine, orange peel, cinnamon sticks, and cloves: potpourri!

Potpourri had a moment in the ‘80s. You couldn’t walk through a living room without bumping into shriveled petals and crispy buds. Across the nation, bowls of dead flowers breathed scents over sofas and coffee tables, and when the potpourri snuck into sachets, those perfumes permeated our underwear drawers.
[Read more…] about Dead Flowers

Some time ago, I read a review of Emilio Salgari’s Captain Storm, and the reviewer, novelist Gustavo Martín Garzo, had many nice things to say about this classic adventure tale, including how this book taught him “that in literature there should always be a secret story behind the more obvious one, and that as you read, the other story unravels.” This observation intrigued me, and now, whenever I read a great work of fiction, I reflect on Garzo’s words and search behind the apparent narrative for something elusive, connected, but gradually disentangling: the secret story. [Read more…] about The Secret Story

If there’s one thing my house has a lot of, it’s pottery. My kitchen cupboards, of course, are stuffed with dishes I made. My office has become a conservatory filled with plants, partly because I love plants but partly because, well, you know: planters. My kids’ rooms haven’t escaped the invasion and hold teapot sets, piggy banks, lamps, candle holders, cups for pens and pencils, and jars for craft supplies. In every room, many pots serve their intended functions, and in every room, many pots don’t. There are teapots acting like bookends, decorative pots masquerading as junk drawers, water pitchers holding spatulas, and vases with bouquets of paintbrushes. [Read more…] about Love Your Darlings

At the end of October, for three nights in a row, a few hours before dawn, strange cries reached me. The first time I heard them, I shook off sleep and staggered upstairs, thinking one of my kids was in the grip of a nightmare. I was wrong. The cries were multiple and coming from outside—outside, but nearby. Coyotes.

I’d seen coyotes before, but singly, never in a pack. Those three nights of yips, whines, and whistles were something else. I thought maybe the coyotes were calling to one another and gathering after their hunt, but I recently did a little research and read how, in October and November, the young disperse, and such cries communicate the establishment of new territory, like an auditory fence. [Read more…] about Song dogs

I love this time of year, when purple and white asters flank our road and the trees put on a glorious show of copper, scarlet, umbers, gold, and that luscious, luminous red like the blush on a peach. Even the sky has a fall-ish look, with great clouds tumbling across the bluest blue. October makes me glad I live in the country, nestled in the woods. It beckons me outside to see the sunshine in the foliage, leaves sweeping the cold air, mushrooms dotting the moist soil under the canopy, and geese stitching the sky and honking overhead. [Read more…] about A Sense of Snug

I spent the first half of my summer revising a manuscript. It’s in my agent’s hands now. I have nothing new underway. No outline for a novel, no notes, not even an idea. [Read more…] about Not Writing (Yet)

I live in the woods, but there’s enough of a clearing around my little house to let in some sunshine, so flowers and shrubs can grow. Only three trees occupy the clearing: an oak in front and a maple and an ash out back. The ash stands closest to the house, by the screened porch and outside my kitchen window. I’ve appreciated this closeness. For the nearly twenty years I’ve lived here, the ash has been a good companion.

Goldfinches have filled the ash tree’s fine spring foliage, their bright breasts flashing, in fluttery shows of hops, lopes, and leaps. Squirrels have raced along its limbs. My kids have sprawled under its canopy. My dog Mocha, watching the furry and feathered creatures that regularly visit this tree, has enjoyed endless reasons to bark. Waking up on a winter’s day, I’ve judged the nighttime accumulation according to how much snow sits on its branches. And on a summer’s evening, the ash has kept the porch cool, its foliage filtering the late light and casting shifting shadows across the screens.

But this particular summer, the tree makes me sad, sad, sad. Almost as soon as it formed leaves, it began to shed them. What little foliage now remains has browned on the branches, a discordant changing, brittle and frail. It’s strange to see an autumnal ash in July, when everything else is lush with vibrant greens and colorful blooms. The tree’s trunk looks riveted; some of its bark, stripped, sickly. The ash is dying.

All the ashes are dying. [Read more…] about Ashes

When I was a teenager in the late eighties and early nineties, I wore the fragrance Eternity by Calvin Klein. The scent drew me. So did its high price. Eternity was a luxury, and I’d grown up with precious few luxuries. I wanted one. To purchase the perfume, I had to dish out a whole weekend’s worth of income—fifteen hours of earnings!—from my job at the nursing home. I wore Eternity religiously. [Read more…] about It Tolls for Thee

I did a couple of book talks at area schools last month. At the one, a middle school, before I could even say a word about creative writing or my novels, a kid asked me, “So are you a millionaire?” which was so cute and funny and easily answered: “Not even close.” Later, another kid asked, “When’s your next book coming out?” This question made me laugh, too.

I don’t know when my next book will come out. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another book come out. In response to that question, I shrugged and added, “But I am working on a novel.” [Read more…] about The Largesse of the Muse

Last winter, my twelve year old and I finally finished The Lord of the Rings. Now we’re well into The Black Cauldron, the second book of Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain, but we miss Tolkien’s books. When we’re out walking our dog Mocha, we still talk about them and mull Frodo and Gollum’s relationship, Sam’s loyalty, the dancing, forest-loving Tom Bombadil (Who the heck is this Tom Bombadil?), and, of course, the ring. We’ve spent a lot of time unpacking that ring, dwelling on its creator, bearer, influence, and fate. The ring’s always starting trouble, and the obstacles born of the ring’s nature and destiny create great conflict. [Read more…] about Trying in Trials