If there’s one quality I admire about squirrels, it’s the creature’s outrageous tenacity. Squirrels never give up, especially when food is at stake. A squirrel will go nuts if you touch their […]
Learning from Squirrels
Everything Takes 12 Steps
I accomplished one thing this weekend. It took all weekend for me to fix three porch chairs. I attribute this to the phenomenon that all things require twelve steps. Here are […]
For My Birthday I’m Marie Kondo’ing My Mind
I saw George Kalogridis, the current President of Walt Disney World, at an event in Orlando recently. Someone said to him, “Of course, you know Alice.” He had the same you-look-so familiar-to-me […]
6 REASONS TO PRE-ORDER MY POETRY BOOK
Love Songs from the End of the World poetry by Katherine Riegel Main Street Rag Publishing 2019 1. You save money! It’s $8.50 plus shipping right now; the normal price […]
Literary Foremothers: EBS and Me
The nineteenth-century writer Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard (called affectionately EBS by her admirers) is one of my literary foremothers and a favorite among those I claim. Her first novel, The Morgesons, published in […]
When God Winks
How do I hear God’s “still small voice” when I am scared of silence? I despaired thinking that to hear God I had to get comfortable with silence. It seemed impossible. A […]
A Short Interview with Christi Clancy
Recently, my friend Christi Clancy, an amazing writer and Assistant Visiting Professor of English at Beloit College, has accepted a two-book publishing deal with St Martin’s publishing house, a well-deserved accomplishment that’s […]
Don’t Be Like Me: Take the Help, Dummy
One of the dumbest things I have ever done in my career as a poet was to waste the opportunity to get feedback on my poems from two advanced-career poets who actually […]
Why I Can’t Write
I am a writer, and I am drowning in time. I am actually drowning in different types of time, and I don’t know, really, which is first, or more important, or more […]
Depression, Medication, and Creativity
Right now, as I’m typing these words, I feel like I don’t have “it.” “It” is that elusive quality we need in order to write. We know it when we feel it, […]
