Ericka Lutz's Blog
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Jul.23.2008
The girls are asleep on Friday night when Maxwell injures himself, a deep accidental cut to the base of his left thumb with an Exacto knife. He grabs the skin together with a washcloth, feeling himself go white. He walks into the living room where Paula reads on the couch. "I'll be back in a...
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Jul.22.2008
A few weeks ago I was in my Wise Woman Johanina's office weeping about career disappointments, and she suggested that I consider my occasional but overwhelming periods of despair, envy, malaise, and disorientation as a kind of flu. "Treat yourself as if you were sick," she said. "...
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11 comments
Jul.21.2008
My newest Red Diaper Dharma column is up at Literary Mama.
"It's last month. We're on a road trip, Annie and I. Nine days through California, Nevada, and Arizona. Motels and hotels, national parks and ghost towns, road food. It's June, it's hot, and the car is small. Annie is a teenage girl...
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Jul.20.2008
I tend to gobble. I read fast, I eat fast, I generally try to squeeze three concurrent lifetimes into this one. But you can't gobble poetry without getting riched out before you are full. I usually try to take too much in all at once, and as a result I've suffered from poetry overwhelm.Belle Yang...
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10 comments
Jul.20.2008
I woke up this morning singing the funk/disco classic "Boogie Nights." So then I needed to YouTube it. It's pretty awesome. I defy you to watch this without a smile on your face. (Okay, they were probably totally high on coke, but hey, people thought of coke as a health food drug then...
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Jul.19.2008
I'm late to the "What is Poetry" party. The question has been answered by the professionals, and I'm still struggling to catch up. I glean this: Poetry is pure communication, distilled emotion, architectural, the right words in the right order, a big tent, what you want it to be. And what...
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5 comments
Jul.18.2008
When the air is seeping from my balloon, when I've lost my vim and vigor, when I need an infusion of strength and guts and oomph, I need soup.
Sipping oncesipping twice sipping chicken soup with rice. ~ Maurice Sendak
Yes! Chicken soup, tomato soup, minestrone, cream of asparagus, matzo...
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7 comments
Jul.17.2008
I once wrote a “dirty” book called Showing Pink. "Some people write about sex using metaphors," a friend told me. "In Showing Pink, you use sex as a metaphor for everything else."
Showing Pink took me many years to write because it wasn’t just a “dirty” book, it was a literary...
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6 comments
Jul.17.2008
Got Reading Guilt? Books you you know you shoulda read? Books your parents made you read? This graphic essay by cartoonist Alison Bechdel of Dykes to Watch Out For made me laugh and nod all the way through. (Thanks, Luan, for the heads up.)
http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/compulsory-reading
As...
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Jul.16.2008
If you've met me in person, especially if you've met me at a party, you might be stunned to hear me call myself an Introvert. Get me in a group and I smile a bunch, especially when I'm in a crowd of people I'm excited to meet. I talk, I talk, I talk... I give my opinions, sometimes loudly, I...
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8 comments
Jul.15.2008
Who are you? I mean really? No, don't post your answers! This one is for you, and you alone.
I spent all day yesterday reading the responses to this "meme" from sixty-eight students in my two summer Business Communication classes. Such thoughtful, heartfelt answers. And out of all sixty-...
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5 comments
Jul.14.2008
Sometimes you wake up and the creative wellsprings are dribbley and dry. Sometimes your project (if you currently have one) feels as appealing as the sweaty insoles of your old gym shoes. You could put your feet back in there, but yuck. Sometimes your feet want to just run free and naked on a sandy...
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Jul.13.2008
"Just looking at a potato, I like to pat it." ~ Julia Child
Me too, Julia, me too. I love potatoes. Russets. Yellow Finns. Fingerlings. I'm not as crazy about the waxy red potatoes with their metallic skin, but a good mealy potato? Mmmmm. There is nothing like a baked potato with...
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11 comments
Jul.12.2008
The clock ticks. The light is strange. The woman is desperate. The thunder claps.
The new video is up. One minute of delight. Or your money back.
Red Room Noir.
http://www.redroom.com/video/red-room-noir
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Jul.11.2008
This one's by request (here you go, June and Dennis!) -- my list of supposedly real excerpts from newspaper classified ads. (I use these as part of an ice-breaking exercise for a business writing workshop I do for MBA students...)
Actual Excerpts from Newspaper Classified Sections
Illiterate?...
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6 comments
About Ericka
Ericka Lutz writes fiction (short and long), non-fiction (creative and commercial), and performance pieces. She's the author of the novel, The Edge of Maybe (March 2012), many short stories, columns, personal essays, and advice books. With a B.A. in...
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