Dec 6, 2019 | 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...
Oct 19, 2019 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes
published on John le Carré’s birthday – October 19, 1931 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 existence was...
Sep 11, 2019 | Current Ned Note, On Books, Past Notes
“The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood feels both more prescient and more hopeful than “The Handmaid’s Tale“. In 1985, women’s rights seemed assured and the world described in Gilead was a strange dystopia. Sadly, Gilead seems like a real possibility...
Jul 22, 2019 | Current Ned Note, On Books, On Writing, Past Notes
I had the pleasure of getting a preview of Katie Grindeland’s debut novel The Gifts We Keep, published by the student cooperative at Ooligan Press. Grindeland’s book was the winner of the 2016 Multnomah County Library Writers Project, and richly deserved...
Jul 4, 2019 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes
In 1812, the Hayes family lived in Maryland. Taxes were being collected by the government for the war effort. A man came around from the government and collected a very large estate tax, which left the family nearly penniless until the next harvest. A few weeks later,...
