President Obama's Closing Words of Newtown Speech

“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said, “and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle, Allison, God has called them all home.

For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on and make our country worthy of their memory. May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in His heavenly place. May He grace those we still have with His holy comfort, and may He bless and watch over this community and the United States of America.

President Barack Obama
Newtown, CT
December 16, 2012

A New Chapter

After work yesterday and today at lunch I wrote the beginning of a new chapter for the novel I'm currently working on, Painting Over Mistakes.  It felt so good to have an oasis of creative writing between writing the first draft of the ECE and the group-anthology SCE followed by returning to the ECE after my mentor makes comments.  Writing these pages is a taste of the semester after the ECE is accepted and I'll turn from critical to creative work for a while.

It's also good to be writing new material.  It will need to be edited heavily, I am sure, but so many bad habits have been replaced by good ones since I started my Spalding MFA work.  Now rewrites can focus on deeper issues, such as character development, the chapter's structure, and how they both fit into the novel as a whole.  And more fun:  I'm writing the chapter in second person (you:  the ashamed I), and it is set in Manhattan in 1970, 1987, and 1992/4.

Should a person have this much fun working?  Yes, yes, a person should.  And this person is very happy about her status.

There’s Got to be a Shortcut Here Somewhere

When I was a kid on a Sunday every summer it would be Ohio County day at Beech Bend Amusement Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky. There would be posters in every store window in Beaver Dam and Hartford, and you could get a free pass into the park. The pass also meant a few free tickets for rides. At the park my parents would eventually run into people they knew who had endured as much of the heat and the noise they could stand and who would give us their leftover ride tickets. Other than gas (cheap then) and snow cones and hot dogs, the day was pretty much free for my folks.

As that Sunday approached, the excitement would build for my brother, sister, and me. We'd finally ride the 45 minutes to Bowling Green, talking about the animals in the small zoo, the games we could play and the prizes we’d win, and the rides: the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Whip and the Wild Mouse. The latter one, a rickety-looking roller coaster, I never rode. But I could spin and snap on the other two until I was so dizzy and whiplashed I could barely walk.

We’d arrive in Bowling Green’s city limits, ready to go straight to the park. And then we'd be sunk. We’d forgotten about my dad’s annual search for the shortcut to Beech Bend, a shortcut he insisted had to exist. He’d start the search immediately. We'd fuss, of course, but Momma would hush us. For what seemed forever, the five of us would drive in circles in our car, windows down because there was no air conditioning. We kids were recalling how long the search had taken in years past and another obstacle that might delay us once we’d reached the seemingly-endless one-lane road that would take us into the park. Every year at least one car would break down and need to be pushed to the grassy median, slowing traffic even more. We’d finally pass that car, sitting there on the side of the road, steam rising from its radiator, glad our car hadn’t done that. We knew the sooner we got to Beech Bend’s entrance road, the sooner we could be past all obstacles and on the rides. Finally we'd start to fuss again, unable to be quiet any longer, and Momma would tell Daddy to go on to the amusement park. He’d give up on the shortcut until the next county day at Beech Bend. And the scenario would play out in pretty much the same way it did every year except as I grew older I became wiser and carried a book to read.

Years later as a college student I picked up a map at a service station in Bowling Green, and I discovered that there had never been a shortcut because all the roads were cut off due to the river and the railroad. A map, what a concept!

Listening for stories

In One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty wrote: "Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole."

One time over a matter of a week, a couple of mice got into my house. For months and even years after, my cat, Luke, would sit by the place where the hole was stuffed, waiting for another one to come in. He never gave up.

As a kid, I was the cat watching for a mouse, the kid listening for a story. I remember sitting on my great aunt's lawn in McHenry, Kentucky. My younger siblings were playing elsewhere. But I was in one of those colorful metal chairs that's back looked like a tulip, my legs dangling. I was with the adults, waiting, listening. And those adults delivered with stories and reactions and a side helping of humor. The only thing that slowed them from telling stories was the whistle of a passing freight train, which they'd have to wait to pass in order to hear. Maybe that's why today I turn down the volume of the television when I hear a train in the distance. I've always thought it was about a restlessness, a desire to travel and be elsewhere. It might be in part. But perhaps I also connect the train's whistle to storytelling. Next time I hear a train, I'll pay better attention to what comes next. A story might jump off one of the cars.

2nd and Church--It's a Literary Location

Attention Writing Friends, Nashville and Tennessee Friends, Spalding Friends, WKU Friends, Reading Friends! The inaugural issue of a new literary journal was launched this week. Meet 2nd and Church. Publisher Roy Burkhead is a Spalding M...FA grad, a WKU grad, and a fabulous writer. Obviously a lot of work and sweat goes into a new literary journal--and perhaps some pain. From Roy's blog: "It was around the end of May of this year when I was near the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Church Street, and I was remembering my desire to create a literary journal that would focus on Nashville and Middle Tennessee. It was also on this day in May when I was hit by a car in the crosswalk." Click the link below to learn more about 2nd and Church.

http://2ndandchurch.com/