Quote: On Writing

From the editors of Tin House Magazine:

". . . a really good piece of writing -- a well-organized, coherent piece with depth, with sentences that show a good understanding of the power of language yet are tightly woven, with no flowery extras -- has a great chance of getting in the magazine." 

And later in the article,

"For such a small insect, cicadas sure show up a lot in poetry and fiction. It sounds silly to take issue with it, but the point is that it smacks of device, which in turn interrupts the dream."

So there you have it -- how to, and how to not, get published in Tin House Magazine.

Retiring the Lesotho Map

Anew

If you have read Utterances before then you know that it now has a new look - a makeover, if you will. 

This new design is the visual manifestation of a shunt to the theme of the blog. For the last two and a half years (Nov. 2008 - Dec. 2011) I was living and working in Lesotho, Southern Africa, as a Peace Corps Education Volunteer. During that time the blog primarily served to document my experiences "on top of the mountain."

I am fortunate to have made a safe return to the States where I am now faced with the daunting and dubious task of finding my place within American society -- a society of the short attention span and personalised technology, of American Idol and Donald Trump, of rest stops and four dollar per gallon gasoline. But also a nation of neighbourhoods and parks. Of coffee and bagels. Of National Public Radio and The New Yorker. Of Obama. Of the Naked Cowboy.

As I undergo this process of re-entry, a foreigner in my own land, the strongest desire I have is to write. I want to express, as the late David Foster Wallace expressed, "What it is to be a fucking human being today."

Let's see . . .