Category Archives: Updates

this is it, that sweet (enough) amerikan dream of disability, social security, unemployment, or the lottery, some desperate way to stop punching a clock, give you a chance to stand outside under the stars, collect your thoughts, observe, come to … Continue reading →

He begged, pleaded to the packed “L” train for anything anyone could give to help him buy the antibiotics he needed for an infected leg he pulled up his pants to reveal, but no one looked at him or the … Continue reading →

That frosty November day, Tom stood at the edge of the grave we’d dug the night before. The preacher, stern, Bible in hand, prayed God have mercy on Potter’s soul. Guilty as Potter of too much fun, the rest of … Continue reading →

Available from Drumlummon  Institute, Helena, MT

The Old Man smiled at the precocious three year old serving him a beer in the backyard gathering after the funeral. She worked the group like a skilled barmaid, knew her cans and brands, remembering faces and orders without a … Continue reading →

Listen to the trees. Give them your eyes and skin. Let the wind be your interpreter, and though you won’t understand exactly what they’re saying, you will know they’re voices do not lie as they move like beasts breathing, cat … Continue reading →

are all of us drawn to heartbreaking stories? do we all love to empathize with others’ pains struggles, anxieties? stories of loss injustice and death strangely satisfy me black comfort food for my soul tortured? no, haunted? maybe, clinical? if … Continue reading →

I’ve been badgered into it, the hole, the pit, a basement cleaning project seventeen years in the making. I begin vacuuming cobwebs overhead insulating the floor joists. Unfinished basements are nests, attics underground. Plastic garbage bags and cans brim with … Continue reading →

His shaved bullet head bobs up and down as he bends to rinse glasses. The tee shirt tight on his bulging wide shoulders, a bar rag slung over one collar bone, the Screamin’ Orphans serenading from speakers overhead. He recites … Continue reading →

Walking across the campus of the University of Montana with a group of summer camp writers, ten year-olds, we stop to view the sculpture I’ve passed maybe a hundred times before, an iron cone topped with a wild, wavy shock … Continue reading →