Author. Educator. Musician.
Jerry, buddy, the sun’s just come up. It’s six in the morning here, so it’s midnight in New England. I’m glad I didn’t wake you, but I did hope to talk. I haven’t been to bed yet, buddy. It’s brilliant here. That’s what they say about everything—brilliant. It’s come to me though. All of it. …
Continue reading “Submission to NPR’s Three Minute Fiction: Oxford Blue In Green”
Cassie, I’m sorry for filling your voicemail, but I keep getting cut off. I just can’t believe about Daniel. Why is he doing this? Doesn’t he remember about Sunday school? Your husband was the teacher, for God’s sake! But I’m sure you’ve been over this in your head and in your conversations with your new …
Continue reading “Submission to NPR’s Three Minute Fiction: Sad Eyes Hazel”
Literary readings can be sad affairs. At their worst, they’re either quiet and bleached, the audience members every so often making an “Mmmm” sound at appropriate times when an image or phrase brings a slight tremor to their soul. Or, they too often exist at the other end of the literary reading spectrum where audience …
Continue reading “Word Portland: Come for a Pint, Stay for the Words”
Here’s how you get away with reading sex scenes in public: make the experience really human. That’s what I learned from attending Steve Almond’s reading at Space Gallery in Portland last Saturday (1.26.13). Being raised in the Catholic tradition, where sex is often had but seldom talked about, I still squirm when hearing someone openly …
Continue reading “Steve Almond and the Art of Reading Literary Smut in Public”
If you’ve read my Stonecoast MFA graduation speech, you noticed that I took a couple of jabs at the writer and teacher, Rick Bass. If you were in attendance at the graduation ceremony, then maybe you were lucky enough to see Rick flash me the bird as he sat with other faculty members a few …
Welcome everyone. I’d like to take a moment to thank Director Finch, Associate Dean Tuchinsky, Aaron, fellow graduates, future graduates, and friends and family. When I first showed up at the Stonehouse, I, maybe like some of the writers in this room, thought all I needed from this program were a few nuanced suggestions from …
In the summer of 2007 on a campus in the Bread Loaf Wilderness in Ripton, Vermont, I inadvertently incited an argument between two writers. While discussing Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker in a fiction writing workshop run by the patient and at times clairvoyant Patricia Powell she noted that Danticat’s book was a novel that …
Continue reading “What the Concept Album Can Teach Short Story Writers”
Jessie wanted to steal a 1973 GMC truck, like the one her father talked about before he died. A kid at school drove one, John Michael—yeah, two first names, dumb right? It was baby blue and he parked at the far end of the student lot. He seemed like a nice guy. A senior. Jessie …
DAVE PATTERSON 