I’ve never been much help to my students when they’ve asked me for advice on becoming a writer.
It’s not because I don’t want to be helpful. I remember their angst and confusion and loneliness, trying to contemplate a life where I get paid to simply put words on a page. It seemed, to steal from [...]
My buddy Austin and I find movies for each other. Or we used to. Back when we actually had time to do things like watch movies and then share them with each other.
(The best moment is when, on the same day, we each picked out Donnie Darko for the other one. Unbeknownst to the other. [...]
Out there in the spotlight/You’re a million miles away
Every ounce of energy/You try to give away
As the sweat pours out your body/Like the music that you play
Later in the evening/As you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers/Ringin’ in your head
You smoke the day’s last cigarette,/Rememberin’ what she said
***
I should start by [...]
Nearly three weeks after the Vanity Fair thrashing Cincinnati and Appalachia hit the Web, my hometown media finally caught the Fever. The last 24 hours has been an interesting mix of blogo-rage, media coverage and Twitter conversation.
As a journalist, a professor and an author, I’m intrigued by how stories develop. This one in particular.
My casual [...]
I spent the last few days at Berea College, digging through the Appalachian Feuds special collections. There was some good information there. It’s mostly filler material, the backdrop information for the story. But I have 200 pages of material coming to me.
The drive down was spectacular. While some folks complain about the flatlands of Indiana, [...]
I’ve been in the special collections section of the Berea College archives. Until recently, this school had a large number of files associated with my family and the 100-year feud in Southern Kentucky. Apparently those files are now in Manchester, the County Seat.
Still, I found some interesting tidbits in the New York Times:
From April [...]
Each eleventh is a goal.
It’s more than that. It’s a target. I count down to and count away from. That number looms in my life, always nearby. I have it posted, conspicuous to me. Not so much to you. It is one part of my “reminders,” the elements of my life that I keep [...]
In 2002, I left Wired News. Whether I was laid off or voluntarily left is still a bit confusing to me. I was told that I wasn’t “on the list” by the higher-ups, but some folks on the facilities staff let me know that my computer access was being removed.
Regardless, I had purchased a house [...]
I am staring at David Foster Wallace tonight, surrounded by my newly filed writing projects for this semester.
I am staring at him because tomorrow I will be once again teaching his writing in my magazine class, wondering if the students really feel the warmth of his words as they spill across the page. Manic. [...]
My life changed forever on May 11, 2008.
It wasn’t the first time my life had changed. It certainly wasn’t the last. And while it turned out to be for the better, the immediate change didn’t feel particularly good.
As I used to hear someone say: You think when you quit drinking that you’re life is supposed [...]
