From the obligatory high school English reading of Wuthering Heights, I have slowly made my way over the past three decades through the novels of the Brontë sisters. For my sixteenth bi… Read More

At some point over the last few years, without realizing it, my literary ambitions have evolved. Since I began writing with the aim of a career as a writer, my goal has always been tradition… Read More

Three brass bells hang by the chimney in the attic. I do not know why these bells are here. They look old. They feel significant. The cord that connects them is fraying, but seems to have… Read More

they say that you cannot but i say that this is only the beginning of the sentence you cannot go home again if your home has been stolen destroyed rendered un… Read More

In some past years, I’ve set reading goals for myself–a certain number of books in a year. Somehow, when the pandemic hit, I stopped reading. I’m still not sure why. Normal… Read More

I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart. “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,” William Butler Yeats The widening gyre of t… Read More

There is so much I did not expect. I did not anticipate exactly how it would feel to inhabit a heat-hating body in the subtropics. I did not expect it to be *constantly* hot. Basically, i… Read More

Several years ago, I was blogging weekly. A few years ago, I embarked on a daily Emily Dickinson poem project. Now, a pandemic-in-progress later, I can’t seem to get to the page. My pr… Read More

Image: https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/reentry It happens every year, constant as the migration of birds, as the earth’s loop around the sun. Sometimes I think it’s not goi… Read More

Image source: https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-palmato-gecko-lizard-front-view-image18668056 I had a plan. I usually have a plan. What doesn’t usually happen i… Read More

It’s been a while. Sunset in southwest Florida                Somehow the longer I’ve been silent, the… Read More

CW: harrassment, assault, rape. What if I didn’t have to say this? What if, instead of expecting girls and women to learn self-defense, we expected boys and men to learn self-contro… Read More

My husband wakes me before dawn from pandemic dreams. In a dream, I am witnessing a hearing in which a government official is being accused of something she didn’t do. Other officia… Read More

Asking for a friend. Who is a dog. My dog. Y’all. I don’t know if it’s a town thing, or a southwest Florida thing, or a thing particular to this specific southwest… Read More

My work-in-progress is a novel about a post-apocalyptic Appalachia, so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to write about home from a distance. Shenandoah Valley, su… Read More

sunset in southwest Florida In late July, my family left the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for the Gulf Coast of Florida. We are closer now to Cuba than to the home we left behind. For… Read More

light a candle or (maybe there is no candle) look out the window to the light of sun, moon, or stars or (maybe there is no window) imagine light its memory hold within yourself all things t… Read More

It’s been a very long time. I had to check–I haven’t written here since the fourth of July. In the interim, much has happened. Nothing extremely dramatic, just the stuff of… Read More

They say the Outer Banks will disappear someday, washed away by storm surge into the vastness of the Atlantic. But they won’t. Nothing disappears. They may be dispersed, but they will… Read More

It’s been a long week. It’s been a long month, for that matter. I recently began teaching full-time again for the first time since Thing 1 was three months old. He’s… Read More

Read More

Read More

light a white candle for mourning for the blank it leaves behind do not worry that your loss is smaller than someone else’s it is your loss it is loss and that is enough is everything… Read More

you will guess her existence from the killing-field tufts of fur strewn beneath white pines soft grey-browns of rabbits, mice, voles you will suspect her in the flash of feathers from a holl… Read More

set a jar of water outside let it steep in moonlight bring it in early the next day when it is slick and cold with dew brew tea with moonwater drink your moon tea and taste how much sweeter… Read More

light a white candle for light light a black candle for darkness (the moon has two faces) this moon is a moment of balance–but only a moment “half-moon,” we say but there… Read More

go outside at night (yes, it’s dark) and look up at the new moon no you cannot see it but look up even though it is invisible speak your intentions to the listening air to the waiting… Read More

So, this is how February is going–I accidentally set my rough draft on fire. I did not burn down the house. Thank goodness for small blessings.I wrote this three years ago. Three… Read More

maybe you had plans but maybe the kids were sick your partner was sick maybe there was a snowstorm maybe the water heater died in the middle of the snowstorm while everyone was sick and mayb… Read More

Begin with good intentions. Many. The best. You will do this. It will be perfect. Choose a candle– the one you’ve been saving– the one too good to burn. You will light it… Read More

Bitter the wind tonight, combing the sea’s hair white: from the North, no need to fear the proud sea-coursing warrior. ~from the Irish, translated by John Montague Earlier this month… Read More

take a white bowl (perhaps a gift– a hand-me-down– a castaway– but any white bowl will do) fill it with water (a mason jar set beneath the full moon– melted snow&ndas&hell…Read More

let my life be the flight of a vulture across the solstice sky battered wings grin gap-toothed black against blue heaven in flawless flight this motion is everything the spin of earth thro… Read More

January stretches thin in places, like a cotton ball unrolled, teased out to a flat gauze. Over the Alleghenies, clouds unravel and sunlight filters down on blued slopes. The sky spits snow… Read More

I’ll tell you how the sun set…Happy New Year! As with every fresh, shiny new year, I’m cooking up lots of plans for this one. This year I’m very excited to be collab… Read More

A Deed knocks first at Thought And then—it knocks at Will— That is the manufacturing spot And Will at Home and well It then goes out an Act Or is entombed so still That only to t… Read More

The Emily Dickinson Project, Day 2: Pam and I discuss a poem via messenger. Here is the full text in all its thorny glory: When I hoped I feared, Since I hoped I dared; Everywhere… Read More

IT’S SO SHINY!!!For the past few years, I’ve had a mostly-daily poetry reading ritual (“mostly-daily” because, well, life). I love books whose titles begin with … Read More

This is the last of my posts sharing notes from the 2018 World Fantasy Convention. Because I am a “save the best for last” kind of girl, I’ve saved my favorites for the fi… Read More

Life has been a bit turbulent lately, and I’ve neglected many things, this blog among them. More on that at some later time….but for now, World Fantasy Convention notes continue… Read More

Two panels at this year’s World Fantasy Covention are dovetailing for me in interesting ways as I look back over my notes: “Unsafe Places and Why Characters Go There,” with… Read More

The panel “Strength Isn’t Just for the Strong” was another excellent one from this year’s World Fantasy Convention. The panelists were Carole Cummings, David Anthony… Read More

Happy Thanksgiving! By way of thanks to you for reading this blog, here are my revised notes from the 2018 World Fantasy Convention panel titled “Best Meals Ever Written.” Bon ap… Read More

Last week, I attended the 44th World Fantasy Convention, held this year in Baltimore. It was a fantastic experience, and over the next few weeks I want to share with you some of what I took… Read More

Another rejection pinged in my inbox this morning. After a hectic start to the school year, I’m working on getting organized, shaping my days better than I have been doing. Every rejec… Read More

Sunrise comes late, bleeding color across the sky. I let out the chickens, and they burst out across the lawn in an explosion of feathered indignation. While I pin wet laundry to the clothes… Read More

No image. Oh well, whatever, never mind. I am a member of Generation X–one of its younger members, born almost a decade after Kurt Cobain. I was not a latchkey kid, though I grew up wi… Read More

In some Indigenous North American traditions, stories belong to certain times. There are stories that may be told only on the long, dark nights of winter. Thus the act of storytelling itsel… Read More

It’s been a hell of a week in ‘Murica. Those of us who identify as female have just been handed incontrovertible proof that our nation, in the 21st century, regards us as second… Read More

Today is wet, quiet, grey. Today Florence’s outer fringes gently mist the valley with rain. It is strange to think that while we are caressed by the calm edge of the storm, its center… Read More

A couple of years ago, I set out to create a “medieval” manuscript. As with all good journeys, I had no idea where this one would lead. I did not expect to become enthralled by t… Read More

I was going to write about the August garden for today, but it has rained here for the past 5,000 years and the August garden is a mudpit of shame and despair, so instead, have this poem I j… Read More

Everybody loves shiny new school supplies.The French do a lot of things extremely well, and one of them is back-to-school. An awkward collection of words in English, in French it’s&nbs&hell…Read More

Often I think about the selves we leave behind, trailing after us like ghosts of ourselves at any given second. The one I miss the most is my seventeen-year-old ghost, wide-eyed and laughing… Read More

Wednesday was Lughnasadh, the ancient Celtic celebration of the beginning of the harvest. I celebrated by wading into my garden and harvesting a bumper crop of weeds. I picked wild blackberr… Read More

It’s that time of summer when I’m beginning to fantasize about next year’s garden. Because this year’s garden is a hot mess. Bean Buddha is characteristical… Read More

existential angst!!This is a follow-up to an earlier post with many more numbers. If you like numbers, you can find it here. Silence (cross-dressing girl warrior story): another rejection of… Read More

For the first time this summer, I am sitting down to post to this blog. Thing 2 is sprawled across the bed behind me, demanding attention as only a kid who has never been an only child can d… Read More

There is only one thing to do. Go into yourself. Examine your reason for writing. Discover whether it is rooted in the depths of your heart, and find out whether you would rather die than be… Read More

For a while now I’ve been meaning to post my query stats in case this is helpful or interesting to anyone else out there who’s in the query trenches, or thinking about diving int… Read More

dogwood & redbudWinter has loosened its grip at last, white fingers melting back into the red clay of the foothills. Across the woods, a green mist rises from the earth, edging hard vin… Read More

My left forearm and midriff itched, burned, and erupted in weeping, crusty patches. I tore at them savagely, which only made them worse…By the end of the week, the angry mange on my s… Read More

Last week’s snow is now snowmelt.The woods today are chill, finger-numbing. Water seeps up from the saturated earth, soaking through my shoes and socks. I cringe as the damp hits my to… Read More

It is always longer than I intend. Apology-dragon brings you holly berries.I have intentions of posting weekly–every week on the same day, at the same time–but something deeply i… Read More

“the Quiet made all things”~Robert Browning, “Caliban upon Setebos” …quietness moves across the winter sky…A quiet day. In the woods, birdsong muffled… Read More

My curse on plays/That have to be set up in fifty ways. ~W. B. Yeats After multiple revisions, it is humbling to realize that only now, in its I-don’t-know-how-many-eth iteration, have… Read More

Tuesday struck with all the fury of a Monday scorned. Too little sleep + defeat + excitement = a recipe for holding back tears in the middle of French class. Thankfully my kiddos were taking… Read More

Read More

Downtown chalk graffiti.These are good words for a new year. Resolutions are dodgy things, but the notion of being true to the best that is in you seems like an excellent mantra and intenti… Read More

If I cannot bring you comfort, then at least I bring you hope. -Trevor Horn and Hans Zimmer, “The Closing of the Year” It’s been an uphill battle.This year. THIS YEAR. I… Read More

The most dangerous thing about anxiety is the stories it tells, the words it howls or whispers into your ear in the thin dark hours of early morning or the weirdly ominous light of a winter… Read More

Life is full, and my head is full, and in trying to figure out what to say, I keep coming back to the notion that Thanksgiving dinner is to people’s stomachs as thoughts are to my brai… Read More

It’s National Novel Writing Month! Who’s in? I am, perhaps foolishly. I finished a major novel rewrite on Sunday, took Monday off, and plunged into a brand new, shiny novel this… Read More

My Nana is the toughest human being I know. She is not only a child of the Great Depression, but the only Yankee in my family. She is practical, unflappable, and unstoppable. She sent her ma… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, Thing 1’s teacher announced a “Wax Museum” project. Students would research Revolutionary War figures and dress up as them. Costumes were supposed to… Read More

This song somehow got lodged in my head a few days ago. When I tell you that I remember watching the music video in the basement of the guys’ dorm in the summer between my freshman and… Read More

Last week was a hectic one–classes, children, critters, meetings, recovering from a nasty virus, and getting back to phone banking for my local candidate for Delegate. Then, this weeke… Read More

I found the chickens’ secret stash at last!Because I like to ascribe meaning to all the doings of birds, I’m counting this secret clutch of chicken eggs I just discovered as a po… Read More

My husband gets the photo credit for this one. Despite the fact that these critters are freaking EVERYWHERE, I can’t seem to get a picture of one. His caption: “The majestic… Read More

Wake up (always a good first step). Get dressed, eat breakfast, see the kids off to school, and go over four sets of detailed critiques, all of which suggest different things. Get ready to… Read More

for Kelsey, who asked A few years ago I began writing a novel called Vessel, titled for the main character, who is a vessel for power that’s used by other people. Stories, for me, usu… Read More

If you’re less than enchanted by the daily contents of your inbox, I highly recommend subscribing to writer/farmer/imperfectionist/beautiful soul Vanessa’s TinyLetter. This… Read More

Just thought I’d be up-front about that. In case there was any lingering doubt. It’s been a while since I wrote here. My blogging seems to cycle through seasons–sometimes I… Read More

So…how do you mentally handle followers and likes and analytics? How wide do you cast your net? What is the method behind your madness for social media (connecting? getting… Read More

Every morning brings its own swirl of thoughts, repeating old patterns in new ways, each as unique as the whorl of a fingerprint. On any given walk, I think of about 5,000 different things… Read More

The best thing in my inbox every day is Vanessa Herald’s TinyLetter, A Fierce Practice, in which she shares beautiful photos of thought-provoking quotes, writes with grace and dee… Read More

Part of adulthood, for me, is the constant struggle to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And so I’m throwing this post out here today. It’s a barely-edited-for-clarit… Read More

It’s hard to break a silence, so I’ll dive in without further preamble. I’ve been quiet but busy. Chicks arrived over spring break, bringing with them tiny peeps and fluff… Read More

Writing is a solitary pursuit. It’s easy, and often necessary, to lock yourself away from the world.Sometimes you have to shut the door, ignore the phone, and live like an angsty caffe… Read More

#HereBeDragons with a sneak peek at my work in progress.It’s hard to stay focused these days. Between keeping up with the constant storm of news, processing the constant stream of ugli… Read More

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, The maker’s rage to order words of the sea, Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier dem… Read More

Wands by my wildly talented friend Sallie. Today I am invoking ALL the moxie and magic.A writer-friend messaged me recently to ask how on earth anyone can stand this querying business. She&r&hell…Read More

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning…Like many people, I’m worried. Scared, even. This feels like the beginning of a new age, and not the kind I’d hoped my childre… Read More

Books have conversations in my head. These dialogues enrich and complicate the experience not only of reading, but of life, because everything is connected, everything becomes a c… Read More

Like many Americans, I’ve been struggling to come to terms with the results–and implications–of the 2016 presidential election. It all feels enormous, beyond my control. W… Read More

At dinner with my parents, Thing 1 suddenly asked, “Is Santa real?” Like any good parent, I immediately said, “This is really good fried chicken. I need to focus on this c… Read More

There is so little that I know. I’ve been struggling, since the election, with how to articulate the maelstrom in my mind and spirit. I’ve felt silent, and silenced. Every time I… Read More

For the past several days, I have done nothing but care for sick children, teach, write, and get by. It has been a grueling week and a half, and yet there is a kind of purity to it, a laser… Read More

It’s the long game I’m playing. My thoughts are fragmented–I’m home with a sick child, scrambling to dispense medicine and drinks, cobbling together substitute lesson… Read More

The leaves are turning, summer-green to gilded flame. The writer sits down at her computer intending to write something poignant and profound, something that will gather autumn’s rosy… Read More