When I was a kid, I loved the beginning of the school year. At first I believed that I was about to be initiated in the orders of the learned. Even in later years when the anticipation of great knowledge was reduced to the lowest common denominator of cafeteria food and lonely recesses, the dropping temperature and falling leaves of early September that heralded a new school year filled me with anticipation. Read More
ByGD
A New Hope
ByGD
Bumbershoot Blogging Break
I spend Labor Day weekend at Bumbershoot every year, and I recommend that you do too. It’s not too late – check out my guide for bringing the family here if you haven’t already. Since I’ve been at Bumbershoot all weekend, I haven’t written anything to post here today. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about it here (and if you look over at ParentMap and Nada Mucho, you might find something up already). But in the meantime, here is a picture I took last year at Bumbershoot. It’s Ryan Granger from the Grizzled Mighty.
ByGD
Book Report: The Bathing Women
While helping my daughter navigate the graphic novel section at the International District Library, the cover of The Bathing Women on a nearby shelf caught my eye. I couldn’t resist a story about the intersecting lives of a group of women shaped by the Cultural Revolution. I read it almost in one sitting, gulping down the last chapter hours after my bedtime. Going to bed instead of reading the last chapter would have been a better choice.
ByGD
Book Report: The Happy Atheist
Arguments about the existence of god bore me. I know my own opinion, and I don’t care about yours.
I’m ambivalent about books based on blogs. Part of me feels gypped; it’s just a a bunch of prewritten material lazily recycled. Another part of me thinks, “Way to go fellow writer! Way to build on a platform and add a book to your bio. I wish I was smart enough to do that.”
The Happy Atheist, by biology professor PZ Myers, was an unsolicited review copy that arrived in my mail one day. It is, as you may have guessed, a collection of blog posts on atheism. I read it anyway.
ByGD
Early Efforts
I think of myself as having come to the writing profession rather late. But grownups who asked me at eight years old what I wanted to be when I grew up received this answer without hesitation, “A writer. I have so many stories in my head that I want to share.” In fact, when I was eight, I was not an aspiring writer. I was a writer. I wrote stories all the time. It’s only as a grownup, after many detours and turns in life’s crooked road, that sharing the stories in my head has become intimidating.
In the movie Shadowlands, when C.S. Lewis meets his future wife, he asks to hear one of her poems. She responds, “I’ll give you an old one; that will be safest.” So, in that vein, here is a recently unearthed story I wrote when I was eight.