29 January 2026 "I open a book I read in college" —Rick Barot, Moving the Bones There it is. That’s the line. Thirty seconds later, I’m digging through my bookshelf, pulling up the past. Scanning books I read in college for little left-behind scribbles. Stars in the margins. Sentences underlined and highlighted. Words that once-upon-a-time … Continue reading A Simple Rick Barot Line Prompts Me to Dig Into the Past
20 January 2026 On a personal level, I’m calling 2026 the Year of the Lavender. It’s a whimsical moniker—based solely on the color of my new notebook and the book of Mikko Harvey poems I bought to start the year. Each morning, I write a page, and I read Harvey’s poems, pairing my coffee with … Continue reading The Year of the Lavender
13 January 2026 Call me a sucker, but I bought (and am enjoying) John Darnielle’s book of lyrics he published recently called This Year. The central figure, the constant, the songwriter, John is the brains behind a little band called The Mountain Goats—a man and a band who’ve been with me since college. It all … Continue reading John Darnielle (Not Bob Dylan) and His Big Book of Annotated Lyrics
5 January 2025 Let’s try this again. Let's at least kick the can again, and see where it lands. This old blog—Writing from Here, I've always called it—is still alive and well, waiting on my big return. It's been five years since my last post. A period of time I won't try to sum up here, … Continue reading The Big Return
18 November 2020 Maybe "haunts" is too strong of a word. Lingers. Let's say Field of Dreams lingers on for me in some far-back, far-away kind of ever-present sense. Here's why: What Ray does is all perceived as some kind of crazy dream. But it isn’t that crazy at all to build something a stranger … Continue reading Yes, the Movie Field of Dreams Still Haunts Me
8 April 2020 The night I find out John Prine has died, I’m three cocktails deep in my apartment in Montana as some April super-moon picks the perfect night to show. I read it. Text it to friends. Then, as with any loss, I can't believe it. There’s no bother trying to collect the colors … Continue reading The Night John Prine Died
24 March 2020 I just read where it’s gonna take four months to get back to normal. Then it will be time for school to start again. Been cloudy and dreary for several days—spots of rain and cool. I won’t see you again till Christmas.
2 February 2020 I need to sit here and write myself back to where I started…. It’s not enough to poke around with pen and paper and stare out the icy window. I need to down the coffee and dig in. Prod the earth beneath the life I say I’ve lived. I need to mine … Continue reading The Deepest Pocket of Forest or Finding the Start of a Story
8 November 2019 I’ve been in Montana four years now. Up here with May snowstorms and November elk hunts. Up here a thousand or more miles from family member or old friend. While everything I have here is still new to me, what lasts and what changes is the history of who I am, who … Continue reading Absence Makes the Heart Grow
11 October 2019 Pilgrim. The word implies desperation. It means: devotee, traveler, wayfarer and believer. It means: one who abandons the past in hopes of something new, something special. I first sponged up Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek because the whole thing—in its way—“takes place” in Virginia, in a pocket of my once-upon-a-time home-place. … Continue reading Annie’s Creek and My Virginia
Writing from Here 