Paynes Gray: When Watercolors Become Words
I’d gone and fallen in love with the wrong man. Said my mother. She hadn’t met him yet, but there were facts. He was Salvadoran (not my country), Catholic (not my religion), a subway-tunnel singer (I shouldn’t have mentioned that), an architect who would rather be an artist. (What sensible daughter marries a rather-be artist?)...
On Riding and Writing Boldly
It was the summer of 2013, and I was in midair. My horse, Eragon, was not very tall, but I’d been launched from his back on a hillside at speed, so I had a long way to fall. My view of the sky between Eragon’s ears flipped to the approaching ground, studded with sticks and rocks....
A Riff on the 2005 [NONFICTIONOW] Writing Conference
Writing is based on curiosity, not an obsession. Where are you? Come out of your comfort zone. Think honesty instead of truth. Don’t write for revenge. Are you reluctant to call attention to yourself? We all live with ambiguity. A place can be exterior (out in the world) or interior (psyche). What is your book...
Marco Millions
In this stupid town I occasionally get invited to this thing or that because I’m Asian-American, so it happened one time I was invited to the gala opening night of an Eugene O’Neill revival called Marco Millions, which is about Marco Polo. You see the connection. Big Chinese cast. Real Chinese, with one or two other...
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