Catching Days
is a blog about writing, reading, and life--how they meld, clash, and astonish. It's a net for catching days.My fiction on the web…
"The Empty Armchair" in Contrary Magazine
"The Splitting Sound" in Clapboard House
"Watching" in Six Sentences
"Frosting" in Contrary Magazine
"Into the Woods" in Storyglossia
My essays on the web…
My reviews on the web…
Kim Wright's Love in Mid Air in Contrary Magazine
Francesca Kay's An Equal Stillness in Contrary Magazine
Mari Strachan's The Earth Hums in B Flat in Contrary Magazine
Rachel Cusk: The Slow Construction of a Writing Life in Blogcritics
Elizabeth Diamond's An Accidental Light in Contrary MagazineCatching Days is one of Powell’s Books “Lit Blogs We Love” !
Favorite Posts
- 12 keys to stronger writing from Annie Dillard via Alexander Chee
- a bent cover
- a gathering place
- are we losing our senses
- feeding the buzzards
- full circle
- life is meals
- like a wick
- row houses
- russian dolls
- sixty potential first sentences
- taking a story apart
- that sinking feeling
- the days cottages
- the street ran on
- the writer's notebook
- word journey
- wordable awareness
Read with me:
A Doctor's Visit: Short Stories by Anton Chekhov
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Blog Stats
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I’m @catchingdays on twitter…
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- 67 degrees in Columbus GA this am--Happy Fall! #september1 1 day ago
- I always appreciate it, Darrelyn! RT @ficwriter RT @catchingdays Eudora Welty's potato salad: wp.me/pjPSw-1C0 #readandeat #recipes #laborday 2 days ago
Monthly Archives: December 2009
a new book bag
As some of you know, French was my first passion. The summers after seventh, eighth, and ninth grades I spent seven to nine weeks in Ferrisburg, Vermont at Ecole Champlain, a French camp on Lake Champlain. I just loved it. … Continue reading
Posted in craft of writing, life, mfa, perspective, place, time, writing
Tagged Words Overflown by Stars
16 Comments
Christmas magic
You can read Dylan Thomas’ story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” online. You can also listen to the author read a substantial excerpt from the 1952 recording. In addition, you can hear the interesting story of how this recording came … Continue reading
Posted in Christmas, Dylan Thomas, details, the day, time
Tagged A Child's Christmas in Wales
2 Comments
send in the elves
My desk this morning, instead of being covered with books and manuscript pages, is covered with Christmas lists. I want to write, but it’s hard to draw my mind away from the unanswered questions and undone errands on my list–with … Continue reading
Posted in Christmas, May Sarton, memoir, the day, writing day
Tagged Journal of a Solitude
8 Comments
it is all just shopping
Wanted to share this quote with you from Anne Enright‘s The Gathering: “I love this undertaker. He has that thing that young people got, sometime after I grew up. He does not pretend. He does not judge. He talks about … Continue reading
the ordinary day
My husband just forwarded me an email, sent to him by a law school and golfing buddy, with a YouTube video of Katrina Kenison, the long-time editor of the Best American Short Story series, reading a seven-minute excerpt from her … Continue reading
Posted in catching moments, family, life, memoir, time
Tagged The Gift of an Ordinary Day
10 Comments
the signal
In Ron Carlson‘s new novel, The Signal, a book that includes both clotheslines and abandoned places, each word counts, as each word should but often doesn’t in novels. The Signal packs a lot into its 184 pages: six days in … Continue reading
what have i done with my life
Behind me climbs a tower of papers, each one containing a thought or a quote or an article that I want to write about here. A few minutes ago, I started shuffling through the stack. About midway down, I stopped … Continue reading
Posted in D.H. Lawrence, Dani Shapiro, Marilynne Robinson, Virginia Woolf, life, time
Tagged Black & White, Home, Mrs. Dalloway, Women in Love
10 Comments
books to trees
Writer Anna Clark is doing a series on her blog, Isak, suggesting that we all choose books as gifts for the holidays. Each almost-daily post in the series suggests not only the title of a book, but also who that … Continue reading
Posted in Christmas, Columbus GA, books, reading
Tagged What Is Found There Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
9 Comments
A Day in the Life of Elizabeth Benedict
Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.” Today, please welcome writer … Continue reading
“It’s hard to tell somebody what you mean to say. And that’s an idea that I’m obsessed with. It’s why I write. It’s why everybody writes.”
--Jonathan Safran Foer