Entries by Bethany

Oh, Brother

  Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that. -Ally Condie, Matched I found this quote this morning and tucked it into my Christmas letter. Obviously, I was thinking of my kids, but then I remembered the […]

Happy Birthday, Grace Paley

One of my favorite writers, Grace Paley, was born on this day in 1922. (The link will take you to her 1992 Paris Review interview.) She is best remembered for her short stories, and once, at the library, I found a set of cassette tapes of her reading her own fiction. If these are ever […]

curiouser and curiouser…

I think that “curiouser and curiouser” is a line from Alice in Wonderland. Stephanie Dowrick repeats it in the writing prompt I worked on this morning. Curiosity is a recurring theme in her book, Creative Journal Writing–in my journal a couple of days ago I copied out this line: “You can become curious about a complex situation rather than […]

What I’m Writing Down

“The habits of journal writing create a most interesting distance between you and your thoughts. Finding out that your thoughts are not inevitable and discovering that not only your thoughts but also your feelings change when you write your thoughts down, you can shift the emphasis, style, and content of your thinking. Experiencing your own […]