Sarah Winman has titled her most recent novel after the genre, and it’s not till two-thirds of the way through her story that she—like any good storyteller—finally teases out the title’s meaning.

The routines ‘d gotten old by then
he said to me, all those steps one had to remember
were things to be forgotten, transcended.

When I picked up Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, I expected to tread a familiar path. The verdant greenery of the cover reminded me of a Baroque painting and the bubblegum-pink drips (evocative of blood?) seemed to whisper: this is girly, this is for you. I thought I knew what to expect from such a novel, but here I am—over a month later—still turning it over in my mind.

Repetitio mater studiorum. Repetition is the mother of learning. These words are on a dog-eared index card magnetized to my fridge. In my writing life, repetitions can be a life-giving route to the borders of comprehension.

I’ll begin with a recommendation: the film Perfect Days. It follows a man who cleans Tokyo’s public toilets—each one a work of art in itself—as he moves through an enviably monastic, analog life. Although almost nothing happens, so much happens in this film.

While Jamie and Matt is a fictional story about an isolated older couple living in a California desert community, it’s also about my fears of growing older and losing my mind to dementia. My grandfather and mother had dementia, so I know what that looks like. I don't mind losing my youthful appearance, like hair or teeth—but my mind is sacred.

Blood Ritual found me because I left the door between Now and Then open. One evening, with red wine in hand and my dog collecting sticks nearby, I felt an electric kind of peace, even with mosquitoes hovering relentlessly—a melancholy buzzing in my ear. I scribbled down, “Unwelcome in my wine,” and went back to defending my weird little peace. With just a few words, I kept the door open, knowing I’d return some other time.

My technique isn’t as complex as my terrain.

When I assemble the photos, I note how they’re drawn toward each other in an almost unconscious way — almost like a coincidence.

I think there can be something wonderful in encountering a voice without its typical guards, even if you can’t quite understand what it’s all about.

Writing about the how’s and why’s of the shadows cast on my ceiling felt like a cleansing and mind-drawer re-arranging that I’d needed to let go in order to reclaim rest. And that’s just what happened. I love when writing does this for me—resolving things so I can let them go and move on.

Poetry gives me a place to be a little more honest. On the inside, I grind and grind and grind.

Like the narrator’s map reading in ‘At Batemans Mill’, some navigation might be helpful.

I discover new ways of working and new ideas with every strip of tape, paper, or drop of glue.

I am slowly learning that maybe real creativity doesn’t come from living a life that is so interesting that inspiration will come and that interesting creative ideas will be given to me.

If you travel along the minor roads of Andalusia, Spain, you’ll pass through a number of rural towns and villages. And if you happen to stop in one of these towns and wander the streets, you’ll find yourself being observed by the locals with a mixture of interest and suspicion. This scenario—the arrival of a stranger in unfamiliar territory—was the basic germ for “El Inglés.”

My creative momentum—whether writing fiction, essay, or poetry, or even working with musical practice or composition—evaporates when I figure out the draft too early.

Poets must apply a critical lens to fledgling poems. We must prod ourselves to see that the speakers of our poems can (and often should) divorce themselves from what Real Thing may have happened to the poet that was the genesis of the poem, and be open to what the poem itself needs to say.

Like many still drawn to the analog ways, I find the unforgiving roll of film to be a gentle constraint to play within. I slow down. I watch closer. I find something that matters to me. In this way, my practice of film photography is kindred to a contemplative practice, sharing a language of pure presence and devotion to Being.