I don’t remember Dad handing me my first rifle. I do remember killing my first rabbit. It was winter, I’d just turned nine, so, in
Category: Our Words, Our Lives
Reading and empathy
Here’s a lovely article on how literary fiction plays a fundamental role in developing the skill of empathy. It’s the antithesis of the brutality of
Cell Phones and Loneliness
Here’s an interview I came across on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” it’s about a new study on cell phones, loneliness, mental health, etc.: Smart
Solitude and Writing
For me, writing has always meant a certain, daily, disciplined solitude. I get up, make an espresso, avoid the computer/phone/newspaper/child/wife, and head straight to my
For My Students
I’ve opened this blog for my students, and am starting in the fall semester of 2017, when I am teaching two classes at Mount St.
A Part of Appalachia Dies
My father was born a sharecropper, lived most his years as an auto mechanic, and retired from the coal mines of Kentucky. Sharecropping meant