memory | memory
Feb.25.2013
The sublime Julianna Baggott talks about Fuse, trilogies, dreaming about storyworld and so much more
Julianna Baggott is flat-out wonderful. Funny, smart, generous and warm, she's also one of the most creative and adventurous writers I know. She's published an astonishing 19 books in a dozen years. Pure, the first book in her trilogy, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and an ALA...
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Feb.19.2013
My Desk
Yesterday, I told the story of how I got a picture back from a framer and didn’t recognize it because it looked so different with a frame: A fable for writers. While I’m in the mode of telling slightly embarrassing anecdotes that have an underlying message for the writing life, here is...
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Feb.17.2013
How much are we shaped by the stories that others tell about us?
I left that question hanging at the end of my last post. As it happens, the ever-popular neurologist Oliver Sacks touched on it in a recent article. In his 2001 memoir, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Sacks recalled a...
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Feb.04.2013
I received an email from my dead cousin on Friday last. I was startled. I was taken aback. I was suspicious. A mix of emotions within the few seconds before I clicked it open.
My British cousin, Alison, died two years ago. Exactly to this day - Monday - if you go by the day of the week. She...
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Jan.30.2013
John Paul Jaramillo is my guest on today’s “A Book and a Chat”. He grew up being told stories by a crazy grandfather, something he has always tried to keep up with. A failed poetry writer in his early years he went on to creating as he says “failed stories” before he found his writing style and...
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Jan.26.2013
Today's mantra is about having faith.
I laugh to myself writing that sentence. 'Today' summarizes a point of time that's a culmination of other points in time.
The mantra, have faith, is the same.
As I thought about myself and my life in the last several days, I came to a...
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Jan.08.2013
Books are a forest and it’s hard to see the trees, except the tall ones or the old ones. But when you enter the forest, it’s the new growth that emits the sunlight....
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Memory, eidetic memory, and fiction
Memory. What is it? Words or is it...
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Jan.02.2013
Some time ago, I listened to a church sermon about names. I'm no longer sure why the priest had decided to talk about names but his anecdotes about the babies he had baptized were entertaining. Like some people I know (my mother and sister among them), he had an issue with names with the letter 'X...
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Dec.16.2012
...on my work(s) in progress can be found here: http://www.jpsmith.org/blog.htm
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Dec.15.2012
You know, even when I'm not typing or scribbling, I'm writing. Often I write in my head about the actual story, but I also just think out different issues. I consider that writing. I've been thinking about character identity the last several days.
See, I knew who the character was...
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