ByGD
“Your first impulse shouldn’t be ‘I’m going to tape it,’ your first impulse should be to listen.” – @susanorlean pic.twitter.com/XL0NoHV9RM
— Hugo House (@HugoHouse) March 11, 2016
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Leaving the house always takes a bit of courage. It’s so much easier to stay home and read a book. But on this night I didn’t hesitate, because I had a ticket to Susan Orlean’s Writerly Autopsy at Hugo House. Read More
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I was stopped at a red light while driving my daughter to preschool. Next to me was one of those public wastelands, a strip of land between roads that served no purpose but to host weeds and give a municipal gardener one more thing to mow twice a year. It was covered in bright green spring grass. Too coarse to be a proper lawn grass, it still seemed too lush to be a native meadow grass. I wondered, ‘Is there such a thing as a weed lawn grass?’ and then wondered that I wondered. Two weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the grass. I would have been too absorbed in the inner monologue dictating my schedule for the day, and how the red light might affect it. But after Iceland Writers Retreat, the grass not only caught my attention, it piqued my curiosity. I blame Susan Orlean. Read More
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In the library at Bessastadir (the Icelandic White House)
Ironically, there is no collective noun for writers. According to Google, James Lipton has suggested “a worship of writers.” Although Lipton is an expert on collective nouns (he’s written a book about it after all) the term hasn’t caught on. The very people who both enshrine common usage of words and mint new words where language provides none have for centuries neglected to establish a collective noun for their own work. Perhaps this is because writing is such solitary work. Read More
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In preparation for Iceland Writers Retreat, I am reading books by each of the featured authors. I placed holds on everything I could find at the library. Most of the books came all at once, but I’m still waiting for a few. While I’m waiting, Susan Orlean’s latest book, Rin Tin Tin, was next in the pile.
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In the introduction to My Kind of Place, Susan Orlean confesses that she loves to travel – even to places that don’t sound wonderful. When the collection of essays begins with a taxidermy convention in Springfield, Illinois, it is immediately apparent that she means it. Read More