It’s summer in Alaska and we’ve been blessed with freakishly high temperatures, sunny skies and daylight stretching out past midnight. It’s intoxicating and giddy. It’s difficult to stay indoors. It’s so damned awesome. Except (there’s always an except, isn’t there?) I haven’t been able to do the things I love the most, namely running and… Read More High summer, and book news
A few months ago, I submitted an essay to the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards Contest from the YMCA here in Tucson. I did this while sitting on the floor of the exercise room, my laptop beside me, a guy on the elliptical machine spraying sweat over my shoulders (I could say that his… Read More Tucson Festival of Books award-winning essay, and Gates Pass
I tried my hand at a 50-word story and soon learned that it isn’t easy to write a full story in exactly 50 words. The original attempt was 140 words. I sliced it down to 100, which wasn’t that difficult. Cutting it to 50, however, was where I really struggled. My aim was to capture a… Read More New work up at 50-word stories
First things first: My flash creative nonfiction piece A Fancy Department Store in Cleveland, 1970 is up at the The Disappointed Housewife. Here’s the beginning: A Fancy Department Store in Cleveland, 1970 We knew we didn’t belong, my sisters and me. We knew by the way the saleslady tightened her mouth, the edges of her lipstick… Read More Essay up at The Disappointed Housewife, and a busy week
Good news: My prose poem, Running mountains at fifty, is up at Gyroscope Review. I wrote this a few years ago, after running up Powerline Pass with a friend in the middle of the winter. It was a magical night, the air so cold it hurt to breathe, but in a good sort of way. Our… Read More New work up at Gyroscope Review, and Best of the Net nomination
It’s been quite a summer. I haven’t been blogging much because, you know, summer. Alaska. Long daylight. Too many hours to play, But I have been writing. Not as much as I could or should have been, but I did manage to write something almost every day, even if it was only a few scribbles… Read More Two publications, and where did summer go?
The damnest thing happened last month. Seriously (our dog) and I were running trails with a friend and her husky, when we saw a lone black bear. And Seriously walked over and kissed it. WTF, eh? Here’s how it happened. We were on the Campbell Tract trails and stopped to water the dogs by the… Read More My dog kissed a bear (Seriously) and, yes, yes, it’s summer in Alaska
I was in a slump. I returned to Alaska a few weeks ago, everything muddy and brown, the trees bare of leaves, last year’s trash blowing across the streets. I was used to the sun-filled warmth of Tucson, to hot days and balmy nights, to sitting out in the yard and reading and then running… Read More Award-winning essay, and returning to Alaska
So I’m in Tucson, with no Internet access (I’ve wisely scheduled these posts so that it looks as if I’m more connected than I really am, hee, hee), and when I finally got my butt to the library and opened up my email, I was met with good news: My hybrid creative nonfiction piece How Mary,… Read More A new publication and an upcoming anthology
I just spent two months away from the online world, as much as possible. I was gone so long that I forgot my WordPress and Twitter passwords. I have to admit that this was difficult at first. My mind didn’t want to slow down. It was hard (almost impossible) to sit and watch a movie… Read More Two months with almost no internet
Cinthia Ritchie 