by Katrina Vandenberg | Oct 25, 2015 | blog posts
IN WHICH FIFTEEN YEARS’ WORTH OF WRITING JOURNALS ARE BURNED IN THE BACKYARD FIRE PIT Yes, I did. And Marie Kondo had nothing to do with it. A few years ago, I had developed the distressing habit of crying every time I left on a trip. I welled up in the drivers’ seat...
by Katrina Vandenberg | Oct 12, 2015 | blog posts
THE ONLY THREE REASONS WRITERS SHOULD RECEIVE MEDALS John Updike, on accepting the MacDowell medal in 1981: “One, they do, in becoming writers, dare to go it alone in a world in which most of us have developed secure links to some part of the corporate governmental...
by Katrina Vandenberg | Sep 12, 2015 | blog posts
NOT EVERY WRITER SHOULD LIVE IN NEW YORK From a letter to Edward Hoagland from Edward Abbey, 16 April 1976: “I wonder if there even really is such a thing as a ‘red-hot center’ in American literary life? When I try to think of the contemporary American writers,...
by Katrina Vandenberg | Sep 2, 2015 | blog posts
AT MY DESK Between having a full-time job and raising a child, I’m not at my desk often enough these days, but when I am, what I like best is the window over it. From my desk you can see the roof of my retired neighbor Skip’s house, and a bird’s eye view of the...
by Katrina Vandenberg | Aug 31, 2015 | blog posts
KEEPING DINNER SIMPLE Minnesotans love summer like no one else I’ve ever lived among. It’s the six months of winter that does it; the 75-degree days and the lakes don’t hurt, either. My husband and I love the break from teaching; our daughter loves spending hour after...
