Writing :: Breathing

Just thinking “out loud” here… I just looked at the little Calendar widget on the left there, and was quite pleased to see so many underlined days in the month of January– that means I’ve been writing often, nearly every day, in fact. YOG has been wonderful for that so far. You may recall daily [...]

Out of the Nest and into the Frying Pan?

Well, I did it. After months of digging through old drafts, scribbling new ones, rewriting, trashing, editing, arranging, and re-arranging poems ad nauseum, I finally finished my first-attempt entry at a poetry chapbook contest. Hooray! I’m so grateful to have had my mom to help me through this process, first by offering a lot of [...]

Cybertext Newsletter: Awesome Tech Writing Resource

TheBossLady is so excited about this blog she just discovered: Cybertext Newsletter (at wordpress dot com). It’s a blog written by employees at Cybertext Consulting, a technical writing and online documentation firm… and man, does it have a lot of good stuff! There’s all kinds of great tips for “savvy” Microsoft Word users (aka “power [...]

“Aspirationally Attractive”

The husband got an audition call for a national commercial, where the talent was required to be “aspirationally attractive, intelligent, and confident,” Aspirationally Attractive? Hmmm. I know what an aspiration is. Assuming they aren’t talking about breathing (maybe breathtaking? nah), we can call it a hope or a dream, and maybe an attainable hope or [...]

Postcard Poetry #1

This year I signed up to be a part of Poetry Postcards, a project sponsored by Concrete Wolf each August where poets send a sort of artistic chain letter series. You mail a poem a day to the names on the list. You compose the poem directly on the card, no edits. At the end [...]

Poetry at Cornucopia Days, Sat 7/11, 2-4 pm

The Northwest Renaissance presents POETS @ CORNUCOPIA DAYS 2-4 p.m. Saturday, July 11, in the Kent Centennial Center, 400 West Gowe. For 25 years, the City of Kent has sponsored live poetry programs at local fairs and events. Way to support your local literary arts and artists! This summer’s program will include readings by four [...]

Today’s Word: HOPE

I was late to work this morning. Rather than fighting through the whiteout that has descended on downtown Tacoma in fog-form, I was sitting with my husband on the couch, watching our 44th president take oaths and take office. Yes, there is a lot of work to do. There always is. And, like the man [...]

Contumacious—adj.

Stubbornly disobedient; willfully obstinate; rebellious. This word is sometimes used in a legal context to describe lawyers, witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants who refuse to follow a judge’s orders. “The judge claimed the lawyer’s repeated violations of the rules and the Court’s orders were intentional, deliberate, blunt, willful, and contumacious.”  I think it’s interesting that this example [...]