I heard her before I knew her name. That’s how it usually goes with voices that stay with you. “In a Lifetime” came out in 1985, a duet with Bono, and I remember thinking the woman singing with him was doing something he couldn’t quite do — something quieter and older and more certain. BonoContinueContinue reading “The Quiet Strength of a Donegal Voice: Remembering Moya Brennan”
Tag Archives: writing-life
When the Letters in the Inbox Break Your Heart
It’s a gray, rainy morning here in our corner of the Louisiana woods, the kind of day that calls for a second pot of coffee and a bit of quiet reflection. I happened across an article recently from GotQuestions.org regarding that heavy, age-old question: Can a person lose their salvation? I know we have a wideContinueContinue reading “When the Letters in the Inbox Break Your Heart”
Writing More Like Elmore
A few years back I came across Elmore Leonard’s short list of rules for writing. The man had a way of making stories feel like real life overheard. One line from him has stayed with me: “My most important rule is one that sums up the ten. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”ContinueContinue reading “Writing More Like Elmore”
Writing Like You Talk — And Meaning It
I came late to the em dash. Embarrassingly late, really… Like a good restaurant that’s been there all along, right down the street, and you just kept driving past. For most of my writing life, I treated punctuation like traffic signals. Period: stop. Comma: slow down. Semicolon: pause, but stay with me. Colon: something formalContinueContinue reading “Writing Like You Talk — And Meaning It”
Early Waters: First Pages of ‘The Gales of November’
When I was writing a commemorative post about the anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I stumbled across a new book on the subject. That put me in a bit of a quandary: since retiring, I’ve been trying to downsize my personal library from four six-foot bookcases to two. Ouch! If you’re a bookworm, you knowContinueContinue reading “Early Waters: First Pages of ‘The Gales of November’”
Veni. Vidi. Scripsi. 