Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
Over the weekend, my parents came to help us with some landscaping work in the backyard. As we lugged wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of gravel and sand, we got caught up on our gossip and reminisced about old times and talked about how much my dad loves c...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
It's been awhile since I've posted anything substantive. After breaking down and deciding to take some time away, I'm working back into my normal schedule. I came across this sketch this morning, and I thought I'd post it here. Pretty early draft that ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
According to this week's Petersburg Observer, Oakford has received an Open Spaces Land Acquisition and Development Grant for $23,600 for the development of a new park. Cardinal Park will be located on Center Street directly behind the new fire station. ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
"most of the pieces we receive are not essays anymore, but autobiographical narratives and reminiscences that read more like sentimental journal entries than thoughtful and rigorous considerations of experience. Everyone has experiences; we as writers mu...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
Hope. And the eyes of a child. Somewhere inside me this little boy still lives, breathes, blinks, unspoiled and peaceful and hopeful and in love with the world. All-knowing in the splish-splash of the bathwater. All-knowing in the pleasure of blowing ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
There was a young woman in my master's program who was working on a short memoir for a creative nonfiction class we were in together. She wrote in her memoir that her young life had been filled with so much chaos, so much noise, that she sometimes liked ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
Okay, I'm starting to get some focus back. I'm starting to back away from the research and get back to what started this whole process to begin with: the writing. I'd been avoiding working on the real stories for awhile, and now that I'm getting back to...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
I'm a big fan of baseball, and I stumbled across this quote yesterday by Babe Ruth. I think it's applicable to a lot of the ideas I've been talking about on this blog lately."How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right throug...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
You are standing just inside the warehouse door when I arrive. As I back the car to the door, you slide the heavy door with the force of your arm, twisting your torso like a lean, young tree sheared by the force of a tornado. Your hair is cut short, spi...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
A week or so ago, Kathy Rhodes wrote a post on her blog that really got me thinking. Kathy is the author of Pink Butterbeans: Stories from the heart of a Southern Woman, and while I have not yet read her book, from everything I've read on her blog, she i...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 6 months ago.
I read most of the posts at Kenyon Review. Generally, on any given day, I can find something relevant to my journey as a writer. Over the weekend, I stumbled across this post on Writing a Novel. While I'm not writing a novel, I think the advice of Walt...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
Where to begin.Work on the book has been lagging. I've gotten busier with work at a time when I really should be much less busy. It's strange how that works. Additionally, I've had a lot of "noise" from the other parts of my life that have drown out th...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
I've always loved the story of Shick Shack, the Pottawatomie chief who lived in the Sandridge area when white settlers moved in. As a kid, I only knew that there was a hill west of Oakford called Shick Shack Hill and that it was named after an Indian who...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
My parents used to belong to a club called the Midstate Cruisers. It was a club for people in the Menard County area who liked to work on old cars. They were hot rodders. Mostly the guys got together on nights and weekends and fixed up old junkyard cars...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
I picked up George Keithley's book-length poem, The Donner Party, yesterday while browsing the stacks at Lincoln Library. I've always loved poetry that captures historical figures and places. I love narrative poetry that tells a story through images and...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
Gary Presley wrote a great piece called "On Truth in Memoir: Remembrance and Amnesia" over at BREVITYs Creative Nonfiction Blog. He writes about the struggle to create truth from our memories, which is something all writers of memoir deal with. He also...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
You threw a voluptuous curve,an unhittable pitch by even the mostable-bodied swingers from the bestlocal nines around. A pitch that flewlike magic to us boys who'd sit in the dirtand watch you play.One by one you knocked 'em down;You were the only Casey ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
Internet Archive: Podcasts: "Welcome to Podcasts"I'm considering starting a weekly or monthly podcast for the blog. I've only just started looking into it, but I already have many ideas. I'm not sure I'll be able to have video right away, but I could ce...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
On Friday, I posted an excerpt from the book. In my brief introduction to the excerpt, I explain that this is part of an essay that was once itself part of another essay. During my revisions, I've had to identify and acknowledge essays within essays, st...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 7 months ago.
Here's an excerpt from a piece I've been working on revising lately. Originally this was the introduction for my story "Something Must Be Lurking in There" about my total and absolute confusion as a child about sex. This stuff about our boyhood adventur...
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Springfield's public access station.
See Springfield before and afterwards. Rollover snapshots of what used to be Springfield.
Springfield's local newspaper.
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