Monthly Archives: August 2013

PLEASE NOTE DATE & TIME CHANGE & REDUCED RATES. THIS IS NOW A WEEKEND MASTER WORKSHOP. I am thrilled to return to Ireland in December to teach my “Brilliance of Brevity” workshop in Lismore Castle, Waterford, as part of the exciting Abroad Writers … Continue reading →

Heartfelt congratulations to the following winners of the Abroad Writers Conference Flash Fiction Contest. Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize Winner & F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature, selected the three winners: 1st Place: Darothy Durkac   — … Continue reading →

After the nurses removed Dad’s life support and feeding tube, he was transferred from the ICU to a small single room in AB Cleary ward, allowing us privacy and 24/7 access. Think ABC I told my brothers and sisters, on … Continue reading →

Dad’s married, middle-aged neighbors two doors up are deaf and dumb and they beat on one another. The beaters have two teenage daughters, aged maybe 14 and 18. In the past almost two decades, during my annual visits to Ireland, … Continue reading →

Dad’s surgeon, a vascular professor, is also a singer-songwriter. Jaysus, don’t tell me that, Dad had said, he’ll be thinking more about his singing than me on the table. I pictured the singer-songwriter surgeon with a knife and fork aimed … Continue reading →

It would be wrong not to tell you how much I laughed with my brothers and sisters in the six weeks while Dad lay dying, in the week while he lay dead. How much we sang together. Laughed and sang … Continue reading →

Yesterday, for the first time, I shot a gun. I aimed, fired straight, but overreached, missing the tin can by inches. After, my arm hurt from the rifle’s kickback. I wish my arm still hurt. I wish I had shot … Continue reading →