I’m over at Huffington Post talking to Rita Zoey Chin about her exceptionally well-written memoir, Let the Tornado Come. You can read the whole interview here. Below, an excerpt: Scott Russell Sanders once introduced a reading of his work, A Private History of Awe (FSG, 2006), with a self-deprecating remark that he . . .
Read MoreI’m over at AWP Writer talking about one of my all-time favorite writers, Jamaica Kincaid, and her work. You can read the full piece here. Below, an excerpt: “Authors are notoriously relentless for culling the gems from the minutiae of their lives. There is a reason why the t-shirt embroidered with these . . .
Read MoreI’m over at NPR.org talking about one of my favorite books, Alessandro Barrico’s Silk. You can read the full piece here. Below, an excerpt: “Baricco has set down a story enshrined in the acceptance that nothing will change, there can be no reversal, no comfort in the certainty that the wish made . . .
Read MoreCucurbitaceae I do not need the label. I know what it is, this bitter gourd. Curl gnarled knob vegetable the one children avoid, concealing it beneath that which is palatable, its better-loved cousins: the ridged vetakolu, the smooth pathola, the tender cucumbers. Who would shun the better-named, the ladies fingers, say, such . . .
Read MoreLast Friday, around this time, I was thinking of perhaps going to bed. The next morning, at 3.30 a.m. to be precise, I was going to join in a long drive from Philadelphia to a small town in Vermont to be present at a memorial service for my aunt through marriage. The . . .
Read MoreA friend sent this bit of the New York Times along to me yesterday, with the note, “how long have I had this now?” She had clipped it at my request, and not got around to sending it. As I looked at the books on this list, I realized for the first . . .
Read MoreDelighted to be over at Words Without Borders, writing about my childhood home and city, Colombo, for the Words Without Borders, The City & The Writer series curated by Nathalie Handal. It was such a pleasure for me to write it and now, a few months on, to re-read what I had . . .
Read MoreMy favorite aunt, the last person my mother called on the phone before she passed away, wrote these words to me today: “What cannot be cured, must be endured.” She was talking about personal difficulties, the lives we’ve each lived, the set-backs experienced. I’ve been staring out of my window here in . . .
Read MoreI’m over at the AWP Writer talking about the reasons why I travel. Below, an excerpt. You can read the full piece here. Any kind of travel can lead to those discoveries that fuel my writing, even the sometimes-arduous book tour. In the streets of Milwaukee I heard the story of his . . .
Read MoreTomorrow is Mother’s Day. I’m in the midst of many crises. On the one hand, the public – I live in a neighborhood where I am perpetually reminded of the American tendency to shut up and let others fight our battles so that we may preserve our veneer of bogus solicitude. On . . .
Read MoreOver at AWP Writer, sharing ten things about what I do and don’t do as a writer. You can read the full article here. Below, an excerpt: #3. Hard Work. Apparently, I don’t do it. I admire those that do, and feel certain pangs of self-doubt when I imagine that if only . . .
Read MoreOver at the Huffington Post interviewing Jen Percy on her research for her book, Demon Camp (Scribner). Her account of Caleb Daniels and his battle with PTSD, has been optioned by Paramount. . You can read the full interview here. Below, an excerpt. RF: You met Caleb Daniels, the main character in . . .
Read MoreI’m over at AWP writing on influence. Check out the cool graphic they’ve added. The girth of my avatar in particular! Below, an excerpt. You can read the full piece here. To acknowledge an influence is no loss of face, surely; the elemental bones of every story have been told before. To . . .
Read MoreI’m over at the Huffington Post, talking with Roger Reeves, whose new collection, King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), has just been released. You can read the full interview here. Below, an excerpt: King Me is, indeed, deeply connected to the roots of human conflict and love. It is an intense, transcendental . . .
Read MoreI am over at American Short Fiction today, talking about my favorite good/bad mothers in fiction alongside a group of excellent folk like Xhenet Aliu, Alexi Zentner, Eugene Cross, Shann Ray, and J. Capó Crucet You can read the whole piece here. Below, an excerpt (this one from Xhenet): When I read . . .
Read MoreI’m over at the Association of Writers and Writing Program blog (AWP Writer) writing about community. You can read the whole article here. Below, an excerpt: Being among other writers, without any specific need for the approval or sign-off of any particular entity (agents, editors, professors, publishers), but rather the celebration of . . .
Read MoreThere’s a Billy Joel song that I learned to sing when I was home in Sri Lanka and when I began to write this, the lyrics came back to me. It’s a song about people in relationships, I suppose, but it could be said that this quality, honesty, is what we seek . . .
Read MoreSome days I forget the exact day on which I lost my mother. Some days I remember that we lose and find people when they are alive, and some days I can forgive myself for having lost her so often and for not finding her when she was still here. Other days . . .
Read MoreI’m over at the new AWP blog site talking writing residencies. The full post is here. Below, an excerpt An increasing number of writers have begun to create their own residencies by partnering with other artists and renting cottages that afford a view or privacy or both, figuring out that it would . . .
Read MoreToday is my brother’s birthday. It is also a day that was his birthday, since my today is already his tomorrow in Sri Lanka. I wanted to write something about this brother of mine, something that speaks to the intensity of the love I feel for him, the regard I have for . . .
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