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 […]
I’d planned on writing this post on the plane last night, but the best laid plans and all those things. The travel delays and obstacles, though, brought new opportunities my way. I had the chance to sit next to a young woman from Charlotte on the flight from Memphis to San Francisco. We chatted about […]
1. I preach to my kids: write every day. I should stop there and clarify that sentence. Because I don’t exactly have kids. I am a professor. I have students. But they are mine. At least for 17 weeks each semester. My job is to help them find the tools they need to go live […]
Sometimes I float. I couldn’t tell you exactly what brings upon these moods in my life anymore than I could tell you when I’m anchored down. Surely there are ideas, tiny thoughts that bounce around in my brain. Dissecting. Always dissecting. The eternal search for that One Thing that will make it all clear. That […]
Prologue. Curveball. The last time I held a baseball bat, with any seriousness, was May 1990. I remember because of what I didn’t do. I remember because years of my life came to focus in that one at bat, that one moment where I expected to succeed in ways that I had succeed before. I […]
1. The first movie I obsessed over, in the kind of way that can only be felt by the young, was Pump Up the Volume. It was the summer after my freshman year at Miami University. I was sober for the first time. I was home in my parents condominium, a place they bought not […]
1. The average lifespan of a white American male is 78 years old. I am 37 right now, which means I’m screaming towards middle-age. The halfway point. You know, if I’m lucky. It’s been a rocky road, though, so I don’t expect that I’ll get to live out that average. Not because I’m a fatalist. […]
General Butler State Park. This is my writing refuge. The place I go where there is no other place for me to go. The chaotic swirls of my life don’t find their way here. I am not sure why. I do not question these places. And yet I don’t always trust the quiet solitude. I […]
Hello Students: You have all heard me discuss David Foster Wallace numerous times throughout the semester (including the class-opening essay, which I still encourage you to read). This will likely not stop during the last 8 weeks. I’d apologize, but since I’m not going to stop, it seems disingenuous to do so. However, of all […]
I’m a few weeks behind on my vlog about Pitching a Book.