What’s rhetoric? I’ve always thought of it as the high-flown language of politics. But really, it’s something we humans do all the time, and that includes the two-year-old humans among us.
On Writing & Reading
Here you'll find author profiles as well as mini – and not-so-mini – book reviews. I’m a writer who loves to talk about writing, so if you like to write I hope you’ll stop by now and then for some writing tips and to chat about the writing life.
‘Read Me a Story, Mommy, But Not That One You Wrote’ (Or,The Nicest Thing My Husband Ever Said to Me)
To save money, management had cut my hours back to one day a week. I did what every self-respecting writer does when she’s ticked off at the world. I sat down at the keyboard – and wrote. Read more.
Walk 1000 Miles Around Lake Michigan? She Did It — Now I Don’t Have To
Walk around Lake Michigan . . . the whole thing. I’d start in late spring and finish up in the fall. And when I was done, I’d write a book about it. Lucky for me, Loreen Niewenhuis beat me to it.
Ceramics Envy at the Berkeley Art Center — I Want to Get My Hands into that Earthy, Messy, Squishy Clay
I’m a writer, but whenever I visit my friend Nancy Selvin’s ceramics studio, I wonder whether I’d rather be working with something more tangible than words and ideas — like clay.
The Writing Room: Heather Donahue and Me – How I Got Hooked on a Pothead
I bought Heather Donahue’s book about marijuana farming, "Grow Girl," because she’s a writer friend of a writer friend of mine. This is what happened.
Sam Lamott Couldn’t Make It, but Anne Arrived With a Bouquet of Bons Mots
Sam Lamott was too busy being an art student and the father of a 2-year-old to show up at a book signing for “Some Assembly Required,” the book he wrote with his mother, the best-selling author Anne Lamott. But Anne was present and had pithy things to say about writing — and being the mother of a 22-year-old father. Read more.
Purple Bearded Irises — Close Up and (Very) Personal
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An iris blossom close up. Purple. Photo by Barbara Newhall[/caption]
An iris blossom close up. Purple. Photo by Barbara Newhall[/caption]
There’s a heck of a lot of erotica going on inside an iris blossom. Stamen. Pistel. Haft. Claws. And, of course, those fuzzy, caterpillar-like beards. Read more.