A Cup of Tea Listen to Catherine Young read: A Cup of Tea Here: Catherine Young Essays I take the thick-walled porcelain cup into my hands. Words from my childhood spin inside it—Grandma’s words: “But for the blink of an eye, you wouldn’t be…
Listening to music while I am writing is a must-have. Firing up my well-curated playlist is just as, if not more important than the obnoxiously large cup of coffee that needs to be sitting by my side during long writing sessions. Flicking that…
“All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story. They are terrible people . . .” This quote by British writer Nina Bawden (1925-2012) in many ways speaks to the heart…
How We Speak to One Another: An Essay Daily Reader Edited by Ander Monson and Craig Reinbold 309 pages, Coffee House Press, $20.00 It is impossible to define an essay unilaterally. Essay Daily’s first collection, though it does not aim at a definition, solves…
Thinking too much about writer’s block often keeps a writer stuck rather than help them engage their mind in different ways. If you’re stuck, use your so-called “paralysis” as an opportunity to try something new. These are not “tricks.” Writing is work, and…
Dwelling Spaces/Urban Places Immensity is within ourselves. —Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space Alley Urban alleys. Urine and crime. Trash and broken glass. Dumpsters. Junkies. Syringes, needle-bent and rusted. Feral cats, pigeons, rats. Stinks and rots. Feces of unknown origin. Persons of unknown origin, curled under trash bags, drunk, or dead.…
A Conversation Sara Cutaia: You’ve said lately that you don’t write as much as you used to. But when you did, how did you vacillate between writing poetry and writing essays? Was there ever a time you were doing both, or did you have…