I’m (finally!) back from Phase 1 of my Insane Book Tour, after 34 appearances in 34 days, with a 10-day break in the middle to run an MFA residency in Ireland—which turned out to be [...]

When I found out my book would be published, a friend asked me when my book tour would take place. Ha! I thought. Book tour. Hilarious! Book tours are for real writers. Stephen King goes [...]

Yesterday I was driving with Cynthia, trying to figure out whether the temperature gauge on the car was called a thermometer or a thermostat, and I had this thought: if the English language is still [...]

This post was written May 13, 2015, but is every bit as relevant today. :-) Yesterday, the Colorado Rockies lost their eleventh game in a row and are cemented in last place. It’s May. We’ve [...]

As a professor of early American Literature, I read a lot, but mostly DWG (Dead White Guy) Lit. In the good old Colonial days (fun times!), native stories were rarely recorded, it was illegal to [...]

This is mostly about my knees. They creak now. Stiffen up. When I get up in the morning, I feel like the Tin Man—just a few squirts of WD-40 would really do the trick. I’ve [...]

Well, it’s winter already, isn’t it? That wasn’t much of a fall, as lovely as it was. So I’m doing what I usually do, which is to mentally hunker down, keeping busy, trying not to [...]

Whenever I would read about someone publishing a book for the first time, the narrative went something like this: “I worked for years on the book, but once I got an agent, it was just [...]

After living in the mountains (where there is no such thing as “yard work”) for years, and then in a 600-square-foot condo (where our HOA fees paid for the tiny-yard work and shoveling), Cynthia and [...]