Author Archive for: bethaot2

About Bethany

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Entries by Bethany

How Colleen McElroy Begins

June 25, 2012 /0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Bethany

I have been thinking about how to begin. This morning I came across this passage in James L. Hill’s African American Review 42.2 (Summer 2008) interview with poet Colleen J. McElroy. It has some wisdom for anyone who is (like me) trying to transition from a busy teaching year to a summer of writing. “…I […]

A Writer’s Alchemy

June 10, 2012 /0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Bethany

alchemy (noun) 1.an early form of chemistry, with philosophic and magical associations, studied in the Middle Ages: its chief aims were to change base metals into gold and to discover the elixir of perpetual youth 2.a power or process of changing one thing into another; esp., a seemingly miraculous power or process of changing a […]

Blog

Year’s EndJanuary 1, 2025 - 2:06 am
It is New Year’s Eve — though this will post as January 1. Anyway, just a few thoughts to wrap up 2024 here at A Habit of Writing. BUYING BOOKS? Earlier this year, a reader asked me, Where do you find your books? The library, I think I said, or friends give them to me, […]
What RemainsDecember 22, 2024 - 3:35 am
Over the last few days, I’ve taken some very long walks, several naps, and I’ve read What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt, trans. and edited by Samantha Rose Hill with Genese Grill (LiverightPubl, 2025). It is being hailed as “a landmark literary event.” The poems, presented in the original German and in English, […]
Necessary LightDecember 14, 2024 - 3:56 am
It is Friday the 13th, probably too late in the day for this to post as 12/13/24, but that’s the date on which I am writing. I have been in a strange, estranged state of late. Not that I haven’t worked. At times I’ve worked obsessively. I made progress on the mystery novel, then I […]
Books for WritersNovember 30, 2024 - 11:33 pm
Before I forget, earlier this month I reviewed Martha Silano’s award-winning new book, This One We Call Ours, for Raven Chronicles. You can read the review here. The holidays are upon us, and if you have a writer-friend, perhaps you’re wondering what book you should buy for them. Along these lines of thought, someone […]
WE HAD OUR REASONS, Ricardo RuizNovember 23, 2024 - 1:57 am
Business as usual seems beyond me right now, and I’m daily amazed by the advertisements that make their way into my email-inbox—including from writers merrily chirping about new classes and life changing strategies for writing “your next best-seller!” But here’s me. Dropping some of my 2024 goals, downsizing from the usual blog reviews, but still […]
Victoria Doerper, WHAT IF WE ALL BLOOMED?November 14, 2024 - 6:52 pm
WHAT IF WE ALL BLOOMED? POEMS OF NATURE, LOVE, AND AGING, Victoria Doerper. Penchant Press International, Bellingham, WA, 2019, 94 pages, paper, $15.95. What If We All Bloomed? is a perfect title for this book of meditative poems. Here’s a poet who can celebrate marriage in one poem, and claim kinship with frogs in the […]
When Artists Go to WorkNovember 9, 2024 - 10:40 pm
I meant to show up today to do a blog-review/appreciation of Ada Limón’s 2011 collection of poems, Sharks in the River. It felt like appropriate reading for this week. (And, indeed, it is.) A woman of color, our national poet laureate. The problem being, I can’t seem to pull a review together. Time is not […]
Election DayNovember 5, 2024 - 6:25 pm
I know I have been strangely silent about the U. S. election — in this venue at least. My family of origin used to be decent, working-class Republicans. Something I didn’t even know until I discovered how much my father admired Ronald Reagan. Now they are die-hard MAGA Republicans. It hurts my heart. If I […]
Jed Myers, LEARNING TO HOLDNovember 2, 2024 - 5:34 pm
LEARNING TO HOLD, Jed Myers. Wandering Aengus Press, Eastsound, WA, 100 pages, paper, $18.60, https://wanderingaenguspress.com. I have a soft spot for any book published by Wandering Aengus Press—their publications include the anthology, For Love of Orcas, a gorgeous tribute book published in 2019. Jed Myers’s Learning to Hold won the Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award, […]
Paulann Petersen’s MY KINDREDOctober 27, 2024 - 12:19 am
MY KINDRED, Paulann Petersen. Salmon Poetry Press, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland, 2023, 108 pages, paper, $14.95, salmonpoetry.com. I read My Kindred in August. I was sprawled on the guest bed in my friend’s daughter’s house in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Everyone else was napping (baby, grandma, mama). I was basking in the light of […]