“I have a story for you,” she said.
I was probably cringing by then. I never called myself a writer or even thought of myself as one. I certainly never imagined that one day I, too, would pull out of my hat that scabied, half-dead rabbit, the writer-protagonist.
– Caroline Adderson, from “Obscure Objects,” The 2016 Short Story Advent Calendar (Hingston + Olsen, 2016)
Sometimes I think of song lyrics that are obnoxiously apropos to what I happen to be doing at a particular moment.
For instance, when tying my tie, all by myself, I think of that line, from The National song, when he says, “I can tie my tie all by myself.”
“Rippling along his ear, the autumn water whispers of cold deeps….“
– Peter Matthiessen, from “Lumumba Lives,” On the River Styx and Other Stories (Vintage, 1990)
“She had not come down unprepared, and her impenetrable face now announced it. She was even strong enough to speak softly—not to meet anger with anger.”
– Henry James, from “The Given Case,” Complete Stories, 1898-1910 (Library of America, 1996)
“I’ve gone looking for that feeling everywhere.”
– Denis Johnson, from “Car Crash While Hitchhiking,” Jesus’ Son: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992)
satakentia
betomad
From Portland to Iowa. This is Yellowstone National Park. photo by
Danielle Nelson
