For an explanation of this project, click here. Plants in glass vases sit on sills on one side of the Computer Lab. I think they’re real, but they’re the kind that don’t seem to need much water. Pebbles fill about a third of the vase and the green shoots out from there. I don’t know anything about plants or flowers… View Post

For an explanation of this project, click here. When Harper was a baby, Jesse and I would drop her off at the church nursery and say something like this: “She’s OK playing by herself, but she might realize we aren’t there if you start talking to her.” We knew she was shy, and talking to strangers, albeit friendly strangers, was… View Post

On the drive to school this morning, I heard a story on NPR about a recipe for chicken that’s made in the South and is known to be “a punishment and a joy at the same time.” I had to pull out my notebook and write those words down because I knew that anything considered a punishment and a joy… View Post

For an explanation of this project, click here. Today we worked on character, and character for Creative Nonfiction can be a tricky thing because, like all things CNF, you have to work with what’s there. You can’t make someone funny or kind if they’re not. If a person is scared or obnoxious for example, you have to write them that… View Post

(For an explanation of this project, click here.) Turns out, that nut I was referring to last time is the Brazilian nut. Also, it takes anywhere from 10 to 30 years to produce a crop. Could be year eleven, fifteen, could be year twenty-eight when that thing is ripe for the picking. (Picking? Do you pick a Brazilian nut?) Once… View Post