Jan 20, 2021 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes, Poetry
Amanda Gorman Read at the Presidential Inauguration, January 2021 When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea. We must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet...
Jan 16, 2021 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
The poet Langston Hughes was a great inspiration to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Examples of their connection are expansive. In 1956, King recited Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son” from the pulpit to honor his wife Coretta, who was celebrating her first Mother’s Day. That...
Dec 23, 2020 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Poetry
A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we...
Dec 14, 2020 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes
John le Carré Obituary in the Guardian October 19, 1931 — December 12, 2020 David John Moore Cornwell began writing novels about espionage and spies when he was working as a full-time intelligence agent for the British foreign service MI6 – a group whose very...
Dec 8, 2020 | Current Ned Note, Horror, On Books, On Writing, Past Notes
The holiday season sees a million variations on Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol, yet this marvelous supernatural tale all too often overshadows the ghostly echoes that permeate Dickens’s entire oeuvre. In John Irving’s book of personal essays, Saving...
Nov 6, 2020 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes
Today, November 6, is the birthday of Oregon writer Brian Doyle. I’ve had the great pleasure of getting to know the writing of Brian Doyle this past year. I was introduced to his work by the wonderful and amazing Kirstin McAuley at the Oregon Episcopal...
