So I don’t want to toot my own horn here (yes I do. I really, really do. Toot! Toot! Toot!) but there’s this thing that happened recently (in the past week) that I’m a little excited about (SUPER excited about) and since I love you (I do!), I want to
Continue readingTag: writing
Dead Wild Roses: Form is Harder than Formalism – The Wasteland that is the 5 Paragraph Essay.
I’ve written more than my fair share of five paragraph essays. Graded a few in my time as well. It would be nice if we could spend the time and teach people different ways of grappling with thoughts and ideas in their writing. The online Aeon Magazine has some
Continue readingScripturient: Does poetry make things happen in 2018?
I was thinking about how little poets seem to matter to modern political administrations. Maybe to modern society as a whole. Their light has, it seems, been waning for several decades as our collective attention shifts. I was thinking about what an odd, awkward fit it would be for a
Continue readingScripturient: A farewell to 2017
Twenty seventeen has a special significance for me, beyond merely another year in the ever-lengthening calendar of my life. I find it difficult, sometimes, to believe I am as old as I am – who, after all, lives this long? I used to think that. Back then, back in my
Continue readingmark a rayner: Long guest post on Booklikes
I have a long guest post up on the Booklikes blog today, in which I describe the process of writing The Fatness. There’s also a giveaway of the book there. Check it out here.
Continue readingmark a rayner: Writing The Fatness
I’m not sure how interesting it is for readers to know the story behind the story, but I thought I’d share my experiences with writing this book. This one was personal. I’ve struggled with weight issues most of my life, so I found it quite difficult to write a humorous
Continue readingPostArctica: Via by Caroline Bergvall
An inventory of translations of the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno. VIA By Caroline Bergvall 48 Dante Variations Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la diritta via era smarrita The Divine Comedy – Pt. 1 Inferno – Canto 1 – (1-3) 1.
Continue readingScripturient: Square words
Writing has been described as the most significant human invention. We tend to think of inventions as mechanical things, like the wheel, or fire, or the printing press, the airplane, the internal combustion engine or cell phone. But without writing, few of them would exist. Writing allowed us to share
Continue readingScripturient: Three, six, seven, nine… how many basic plots?
When I was in school, back in the last century, I was taught there were three basic plots in which every story ever written could be classified: Man-vs-man, man-vs-nature and man-vs-himself. That was in the days when it wasn’t politically incorrect to use the word man to mean everyone. Today
Continue readingScripturient: Thank you and Happy New Year
Twenty seventeen will arrive one second later than expected, thanks to the addition of a leap second added to balance the atomic clocks with the Earth’s actual time. One more second for my readers to browse, I suppose, although 2016 was such an awful year that few folks want it
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Time Stamp: Blog Writer’s Block
As of late, I’ve ‘got nothing’. Facebook has ruined my blogging.
Continue readingScripturient: Old habits, old junk
The past couple of weeks I have been trying to turn my office (one of our spare bedrooms, once upon a time) back into my office. A working space I’ll need when Susan retires this winter. My man cave, so to speak. Over the past few years, since I sold
Continue readingmark a rayner: Alexandra Leaving – a short history
This song is based on a poem by the Greek poet, Constantine P. Cavafy. His source material was a story from Plutarch about Mark Anthony, as he watched his allies and supporters leave Alexandra before his enemy Octavian attacked the city. The original poem is called “The god forsakes Antony,” and is a meditation on the […]
Continue readingScripturient: The gems of Salomé
I was perhaps 11 or 12 when I first encountered Oscar Wilde’s play, Salomé. Some of it, at least. At the time, I knew nothing of Wilde, his writing, or even much about theatre in general. After all, I was in grade seven or eight. It would be a …
Continue readingmark a rayner: New Fiction: Empty Space Times Two
This piece is probably the most straight-up sentimental thing I’ve ever written, but I’m quite chuffed to join the ranks of the writers who have been published by The Saturday Evening Post. (That includes, you guessed it, my literary hero, …
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It looks good on the NDP.
It is the way an Aussie friend says, “It looks good on them.” It is not said in a mean way but it implies that they deserve their quandary. And the current condition of the New Democrats is not only well deserved but about time. There are no more political virgins for them to sacrifice. […]
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Simple words work best #nlpoli
esquire.com last October. Big headline: Donald Trump Woos Republicans By Speaking at a 4th Grade LevelSmaller head: His competitors from both parties aren’t much better.Aren’t much better.Speaking at such a low grade level is a bad thing.The spe…
Continue readingScripturient: Type Crimes and Taxes
Type crime is the term author Ellen Lupton uses in her book, Thinking With Type, to describe egregiously bad typography. That description came to mind as I perused the latest fluff mailer from our MP; the so-called “Tax Guide.” So-called be…
Continue readingScripturient: The Wolf and the Dogs
Once upon a time, there was a pack of good-hearted dogs who were known for their good deeds, and indeed their good natures. They travelled around the town unmolested, loved by everyone they met, helping with the chores, keeping the town safe from wil…
Continue readingScripturient: Just My Type
Those long legs. Gently sloping shoulders. The swelling curves above and below. The sophisticated line of the throat. Everything to attract me, to draw my aging eye, to warm my heart. The sensual Bembo. She’s my kind of type. Bembo is one of the…
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