They’re common as grass up here, and far more populous than trees. Lichens are everywhere, although I mostly notice them on rocks. Their ubiquity works against them, I suppose, makes it easy to skim past them with quick categorizing glances: the frilly pale green lichen, that orange one, the fluorescent lime variety. They’re also small…
About a decade ago, on the afternoon of October 12, 2007, I turned off South Dakota’s Highway 79 a few miles south of the small town of Hermosa, onto a road called Windbreak Lane. In January of that year I had quit writing, and I was on my way to a writing retreat where I…
First things first: I am not a poet. As I mentioned in my last post, my writerly sensibilities are suited to essays, and that’s where I’ve long staked my claim. If I were to pursue poetry again, I suspect the results would best be characterized using the term my dad used for his writing, which…
I recently dipped my toe into the sub-genre of so-called “flash” or “micro” nonfiction, the defining characteristic of which is an abbreviated word count. I regularly write blog posts in the 700-900 word range, which qualify as flash nonfiction under some definitions, but that length is comfortable for me. I wanted to try something shorter,…