This evening I went walking with the dogs in the hills beyond the house. They start out as hills, brown and gentle and covered in sagebrush, and then rise up into brown mountains, and then beyond that there are higher mountains still, topped with snow and jagged white rock edges and cold blowing clouds. I … Continue reading loneliness and the wisdom of birch trees
the intersection where creativity and productivity meet
It’s snowing now. I’m in my little aluminum trailer, in the yard where the emus live. The ground outside is dry yellow grass. The low mountains are brown. The sky is white. The trees are bare. Trees wouldn’t grow here, but the caretaker pumps water from the well to water them. There are a couple … Continue reading the intersection where creativity and productivity meet
I D A H O
I’m in Idaho, in a big house made of logs. The house is next to a river that’s flat and slow and glitters in the sunshine. On both sides of the river are low brown mountains, treeless but for their very tops, and still partly crusted in white. The land around the house is a … Continue reading I D A H O
an update
Here I am, back in Portland. I was just in the woods for a few days, doing a working interview at the local hot-springs resort. It’s dark in the woods, and rainy. I ate a lot of gluten-free walnut bread and in my off-time worked my way through the Little House on the Prairie box … Continue reading an update
Fund-Raising!
Faithful Readers- So I’ve been invited to do a writer’s residency in remote northern Idaho for the month of March, at some artists’ land where there are horses, and nice light-filled rooms in which to work, and dry steadfast weather, and solitude. I don’t have to pay a single cent for it, other than gas … Continue reading Fund-Raising!
the most generous person in the world, loggers who blog, and our ragtag bag of orphans
Today is the last day of my antibiotics. This week has been a whirlwind of nausea, weakness, fatigue, and socializing. Tomorrow it is all over, my colon is now a dead zone, and I promise never, ever to swallow lakewater while swimming, ever again. But! This weekend the most generous person in the world had … Continue reading the most generous person in the world, loggers who blog, and our ragtag bag of orphans
A Fate Worse Than Death
(this is the piece I read at my reading on tuesday. the theme was "what we are afraid of", so I wrote about my schizophrenic mother.) (also- I use the word "crazy" alot in this piece, and I realized, last night after reading it aloud to the entire city, that my usage could be pretty … Continue reading A Fate Worse Than Death
doritos, tater tots, and the anatomical vagina of the sea
Yesterday, C and I made a list of things to take to Idaho. It was a food list- grains and legumes, oils and spices, animals. Plants. This evening AM came over to practice reading aloud and read a piece about the food she has eaten- all the food she has eaten in her entire life. … Continue reading doritos, tater tots, and the anatomical vagina of the sea
munitions
Here you are, February, in all your glory. Some days that are like springtime, with the warm yellow sun and the daffodils that have just come up, and then the rain comes back, a barrage of cold and wet and dark, and my shack is a ship pitching on the ocean again, in a storm. … Continue reading munitions
the good word
Some words from Annie Dillard, since I have none of my own today- I lay a cherry log on the fire and settle in. I'm getting used to this planet and to this curious human culture which is as cheerfully enthusiastic as it is cheerfully cruel. I never cease to marvel at the newspapers. In … Continue reading the good word
CARROT QUINN 
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