by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 1, 2010 | How We Spend Our Days |
Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.” Today, please welcome writer Abigail Thomas: It’s too...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 27, 2009 | craft of writing, life, mfa, place, time |
As some of you know, French was my first passion. The summers after seventh, eighth, and ninth grades I spent seven to nine weeks in Ferrisburg, Vermont at Ecole Champlain, a French camp on Lake Champlain. I just loved it. While I was there, I had the opportunity to...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 24, 2009 | details, the day, time |
You can read Dylan Thomas’ story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” online. You can also listen to the author read a substantial excerpt from the 1952 recording. In addition, you can hear the interesting story of how this recording came to be in...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 22, 2009 | memoir, the day |
My desk this morning, instead of being covered with books and manuscript pages, is covered with Christmas lists. I want to write, but it’s hard to draw my mind away from the unanswered questions and undone errands on my list–with the clock ticking. I...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 20, 2009 | craft of writing, details |
Wanted to share this quote with you from Anne Enright’s The Gathering: “I love this undertaker. He has that thing that young people got, sometime after I grew up. He does not pretend. He does not judge. He talks about the caskets in a...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 17, 2009 | catching moments, life, memoir, time |
My husband just forwarded me an email, sent to him by a law school and golfing buddy, with a YouTube video of Katrina Kenison, the long-time editor of the Best American Short Story series, reading a seven-minute excerpt from her new memoir. As an antidote to these...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 14, 2009 | reading |
In Ron Carlson’s new novel, The Signal, a book that includes both clotheslines and abandoned places, each word counts, as each word should but often doesn’t in novels. The Signal packs a lot into its 184 pages: six days in the life of its main character...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 11, 2009 | Dani Shapiro, life, time |
Behind me climbs a tower of papers, each one containing a thought or a quote or an article that I want to write about here. A few minutes ago, I started shuffling through the stack. About midway down, I stopped on a piece of graph paper on which I had scrawled these...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 8, 2009 | Columbus GA, reading |
Writer Anna Clark is doing a series on her blog, Isak, suggesting that we all choose books as gifts for the holidays. Each almost-daily post in the series suggests not only the title of a book, but also who that book would be perfect for, what edition to buy, and...
