Novel by Christina Carson
Purchase at Amazon Kindle
Quote from Suffer the Little Children:
"Perhaps what we call misfortune is actually a place where the universe interrupts our habits that keep life so limited and small, forcing us to respond differently. The opportunity it offers depends on how hard we work to close the gap or hold it open, allowing ourselves to glimpse realities we've never glimpsed before."
Novel by Christina Carson
Quote from Dying to Know:
"I knew in that moment, we were never meant to surrender our childlike innocence, to trade a world in which we fit like a glove for one that hung on us like ill-fitting hand-me-downs. However, all about us insisted on our membership. And instead of a handshake or a mystical password as entrance into this spurious society, we agreed instead to share a lie, the one that says we’re safe, secure, and fulfilled living this way."
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All blog posts tagged with writing
Landlocked in Fur
I momentarily borrowed the title to one of Tukaram’s poems that I love. Daniel Ladinsky, one of my favorite translators of ecstatic poetry, renders it so marvelously I wanted to share it with you. Laughter comes more naturally to those who slip further and further out of the clutch of self-absorpt…
How Did This Happen
Over my year in social media, I’ve watched the tides of emotion running through the group I hang out with the most – writers, we souls on the edge of this new era of publishing and communication. Each in his own way started on a high point—finally we could be the gatekeeper of our dreams, we could p…
Oh Those Naughty Words
I've had trouble with the illogical all my life. The quirk showed up early, but didn’t take hold until the cussword discussion took place in our household. I don’t remember exactly what set it off. If I had to guess, I’d say I innocently used one of the banned words in conversation. It was the minor…
The Long View
The American ethos has never been inclined toward the long view. Like a teenager in an old folks’ home, America has been the icon for youthfulness and immediacy in a world of much older cultures dominated by their enduring, patient histories. This sparky nature of ours most certainly has its upside …
The Zen of Ray Bradbury
“Sometimes I am stunned at my capacity as a nine-year-old, to understand my entrapment and escape it. How is it that the boy I was in October, 1929, could, because of criticism of his fourth-grade schoolmates, tear up his Buck Rogers comic strips and a month later judge all of his friends idiots and…
The Books That Live Forever
Yesterday, Stephen Woodfin’s blog, “Five Books You Think Everyone Should Read,” started me musing, as it did a few others, judging from the comments that followed. Books aren’t like acquaintances; they are life experiences that we carry with us to the end. And when you think of it, that descript…
When the Buddhist Monks Came to Town
In March of 1959, which for many of you was long before you were born, a group of 38 people stole out of Lasha, Tibet around midnight and walked through the Himalayas to asylum in India. The Dalai Lama, who was only 18 years-old, was in the group as well as two other monks he’d chosen to accompany h…
The Motherbreed
I've been sick for the last week. Illness quiets me and soften me around the edges. I began reminiscing about my life as a shepherdess, my adoration and respect for sheep, and the admirable qualities they demonstrate. Sheep have all the merits of the people I most love – kindness, humor, joy, toler…
Something Real for a Change
I've always been a fan of radio. For years, living in northern Alberta, radio was all we had – two stations, one local farm and country broadcast and the national station, CBC, a wonderful medium that joined the two edges of that vast country such that you felt like you all lived in the same small t…
We Call the Game
I, perhaps like you, ponder often these days on how we writers can create the readership and sales we need. Yesterday, I was comparing a small sampling of indie publishers in the Kindle Store Top 100 Best Sellers (paid), looking for commonalities that might explain their presence there. Well, I have…
Promise Me This
One of my friends of forty years once said to me about twenty years back, after going to a fantasy movie with her young son, “Kids don’t need fantasy; adults do.” And we both laughed. Young kids still know the birds talk to you if you’ll listen. They know imaginary friends aren’t necessarily imagina…
Books That Disturb Us
A book sits on the short shelf above our bed where I keep my treasures. It is a book that elicited heated debates, accusations, cruel judgments and little praise when first published. It was commissioned, in a sense, by a man in his seventh decade, a man who was one of the few remaining who still kn…
The Masters
I was twelve years old, had just finished reading Wuthering Heights and was pondering, which I did regularly. I walked to the kitchen where my mum was cooking dinner, leaned against the wall and asked, “Who decides who the Masters are? Who decided that Beethoven was great or Rembrandt or Emily Br…
The View from Here
There is a great deal of talk these days about the impact the staggering change in the publishing industry from print to digital will have on the world of writing, for it essentially means anyone can publish a book. We've traded the gatekeepers for an open playing field and some are heralding it, wh…
The Crux of the Matter
The dedication to Raymond Carver’s last book, A New Path to the Waterfall, reads: Tess. Tess. Tess. Tess
Tess Gallagher was his final and truest love, though they didn’t meet until well into his life, one that began beleaguered and coarse, and carried on into alcoholism and struggle. But he …
The World According to You
Writing is a fascination for me. The reason being there is no end to its mastery. I've always preferred the world with more mysteries than not, with edges that recede as you walk toward them. I remember sitting in my freshman Introduction to Biology course which started with a lesson from cosmology …
The Power Writers Hold
So now on the lighter side, recently I found a file of letters I wrote over the years to various authors, all out of gratitude, some serious, some lighthearted. All pointed to one very obvious conclusion; writers are a power-wielding group of people, for we humans are the keeper of words, and those …
Language - Advantage or Disadvantage
This may seem a strange blog title given I’m an author, especially when one of the joys of my life is marveling at how cleverly master writers can include us in their experiences and explanations of life.
What I'm not inclined to do, however, is make the dubious leap to the conclusion that our…
Appreciating Intuition
In my last blog, in suggesting a different explanation for J.A. Konrath’s success, I described two different frames of reference from which we humans can operate, one as a rational being and another as an intuitive being. I further suggested that much of our confusion and frustration results from us…
The Real Secret to J.A.Konrath’s Success
I was thirty years old when I went farming. I’d begun life as a Phi Beta Kappa graduate, moved on to college teacher, was next the laborer for our small masonry construction company, and then a shepherdess, a progression labeled regression by those who knew me best. To make matters worse, …