Life in the Rural Fast Lane, my blog entry turned radio essay that aired this month on WVTF public radio stirred-up quite a bit of feedback. The emails I got after the piece aired were all friendly enough, even the one from the man who wanted to inform me that “VDOT would be very upset […]
My blog is a year old. It was born on March 12, 2005 at Blogger.com. Five days later, with the encouragement of friends and fellow Floyd bloggers, it took its first steps and made its way to Moveable Type. Below are excerpts from some of Loose Leaf’s first words: March 12: How’s It Working For […]
All my friends would like to know…how I can sleep so late…well, I have a gene for it…the wine of words is mostly partaken…in the wee hours of the morning…I write alone. ~ Colleen, From The Zen of Winter Poetry, Muses Like Moonlight. The open mic that began as a community outreach effort by the […]
I and Pangur my cat… “Tis a like task we are at…Hunting mice is his delight…Hunting words I sit all night. ~ Excerpt from a stanza scribbled into a ninth century Latin manuscript by an Irish scribe. In March everything is turning green and seems to revolve around St. Patrick’s Day. The March issue […]
The following are my answers to interview questions posed by Jake from the Jake Silver Show: 1. When do you first recall wanting to be a writer and what inspired that? I began writing Bob Dylan-inspired poetry as a teenager in my bedroom and then “letters to the editor” for local newspapers. As a young […]
I got the idea of featuring my 10 favorite posts from Paul at “Writing from the Hip.” I’ve been blogging at Loose Leaf for 9 months now, and I decided to choose favorites from my first 6 months of entries, March – August. I didn’t have many readers in my first few months of blogging, […]
“Everything has its roots in the unseen world…Every wondrous sight will vanish…Every sweet word will fade” ~ Rumi We buried my older brother, Jim, who died suddenly at the age of fifty-four, in July 2001. My younger brother, Dan, died a month later at the age of forty-nine. Since their deaths, life has had a […]
AKA: Homecoming at the Venetian ~ It was as if I was holding court at the Italian restaurant where my mother and I had gone to eat dinner and my sister, Kathy, the restaurant’s manager, was the master of ceremony. Over the course of our dinner – angel hair pasta with garlic, olive oil, and […]
Going to poetry readings – to read my poems in public – reminds me of going to a funeral. I want to go. It’s what I need to do. I know I’ll feel better later for having done it. But I always dread facing it, and I always feel uncomfortable… Back in elementary school, I […]
My favorite thing about having a published book has been witnessing all the attention and support that my mother (after losing two sons) has received in my hometown of Hull, Massachusetts because of it – and if the book were a vacuum cleaner, she would be the salesperson of the month. After the article about […]
When we do what we were made for and follow it to a completion, when we offer our work as a way to touch others, it opens the way for more. ~ Colleen from “Book Signing” My husband, Joe, and I recently attended the 1st Annual Franklin County Book Festival where I met other local […]
Sometimes writing is like juggling, like having apples and oranges in the air at the same time. You start to hear the next story before finishing the one you’re working on. Soon you have three or four going at the same time. ~ From Gravity, Muses Like Moonlight We tend to forget that writing […]
