The Crystal Gazer

I shall gather myself into myself again, I shall take my scattered selves and make them one, Fusing them into a polished crystal ball Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.   I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent, Watching the future come and the present go, And the [...]

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Not Quite Write

While there have always been explicit rules of grammar, punctuation, and other elements of writing, the general guidelines for compelling fiction are much more subjective, intuitive, and, well, squishy.  Even some of the more traditional, hard fast principles of effective storytelling are becoming less rigid.  Novelists and short story writers have to rely more on [...]

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Short Story Award for New Writers

Glimmer Train is currently accepting submissions for its Short Story Award for New Writers contest through February 28.  The contest is open to writers whose fiction has not appeared in any print publication with a circulation over 5,000.  Entries must not have appeared in any print publication.  Stories submitted to this category are typically 3,000 [...]

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Literary Remains

If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic. […] It’s a kind of literary archeology: On the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to [...]

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A Night with Jane Austen

As part of the 2010-2011 A Night With… series, Chapman University’s Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to present “A Night with Jane Austen” on Tuesday, February 22.  This event celebrates the 200th anniversary of the publication of Austen’s first novel Sense and Sensibility, which she wrote under the pseudonym “A Lady” [...]

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Somewhere or Other

Somewhere or other there must surely be The face not seen, the voice not heard, The heart that not yet – never yet – ah me! Made answer to my word.   Somewhere or other, may be near or far; Past land and sea, clean out of sight; Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star [...]

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Opportunity

Master of human destinies am I! Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and passing by Hovel and mart and palace – soon or late I knock, unbidden, once at every gate! If sleeping, wake – if feasting, rise before I turn away.  [...]

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Because I Write of It

It is no worse, because I write of it.  It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand.  It is done.  Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was.            ~ From David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, born on this day in 1812

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2011 Sigma Tau Delta Convention

Early registration is now open through February 21 for the 2011 Sigma Tau Delta International English Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 23-26.  I am pleased to be presenting my original essay on chaos theory in Virginia Woolf (“On the Wings of Angels and Butterflies: The Chaotic Journey to Woman in Mrs. Dalloway and To the [...]

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February Twilight

I stood beside a hill Smooth with new-laid snow, A single star looked out From the cold evening glow.   There was no other creature That saw what I could see – I stood and watched the evening star As long as it watched me. ~ Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)  

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