When you think of the elements of a good piece of fiction you may consider character, plot, tone, metaphor and symbolism, etc. I would like to introduce another necessary element in literary fiction; I call it “moments of sheer radiance.”…

If you look up the word 'visionary' on dictionary.com this is what it will give you:

 …

About thirteen years ago I wrote and published a novel called The Jewel of the Lotus Flower. On the cover I wrote “A raw, provocative story about coming of age and identity.” It was raw alright, because it didn't have an editor. It also had a lot of stream of consciousness writing in it, because at the time I thought stream of consciousness writing was cool. I have since gone back to…

A shorter version of this essay was published in North Shore Art Throb several years ago. Since doubt seems to be creeping up again, I thought I would put it here, in the blog.

The Role of Doubt in an Artist's Life…

Michael Cunningham says, “Mrs. Dalloway <also> contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it”

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I named it: this thing called artist hysteria. That's what I kept thinking as I walked in the woods this morning. I get it when someone critiques my work and this praise junkie doesn't get her fix. So I panic. I go over my words, exhausted, at the end of the night. My belief is, if I don't create…

Immediately, the dream. I am the Clarissa Dalloway character, concerned with delphiniums and my ex, FF, is the Peter Walsh character, worldly, in love with an Indian girl. I am having dinner with him and his father. The father is stern, silent, dark hair, dark eyes, just like FF, only the Ayatollah's blood pumps through his veins. I read his thoughts,…

This morning I found myself asking myself that age old question: what is the purpose of being a writer, anyway? And I gave myself that age old answer: the purpose of being a writer is to rid yourself of swamp mind, of the ambiguous, the gray, to pronounce your words with clarity and conviction. To achieve the miraculous voice of unique self despite all the other amalgams of voices…

From “The Wall” by Anne Sexton

We live beneath the ground

and if Christ should come in the form of a plow

and…

August 5, 2011

I had a student ask me once why literature is depressing. “Almost everything we've read, quality literature, but depressing as all hell.” It's a fair question. I…