Writing Features

The Music in Prose

The best writing and what makes it sing

Belief Is a Powerful Elixir

4 Min read 1 Essay collection, Maya Angelou Music as a gift AVAILABLE ON PODCAST SPOTIFY iTunes * Believe in me and I can do anything. It's a powerful thing, belief. If a person believes in you, you can move mountains. As a child when I asked why I had bent fingers,...

Two Things Everybody’s Got to Do

2 min read What is love? Music in Prose Receiving a book you already own Black History Month 1 novel, Zora Neale Hurston AVAILABLE ON PODCAST SPOTIFY iTunes * This winter I received five new copies of books I own, four as gifts. When I've read a book, I have a...

Punch In, Punch Out: the Profession and the Side Hustle

3 Min read 1 Book rec Writing Originality and Passion AVAILABLE ON PODCAST Spotify iTunes * So you want to write? Do you like words? I finished reading Murakami's book Novelist as a Vocation which was published in 2015 and translated to the English in 2022. As of the...

Write for Your Life*

2 Min read Short take 1 Book rec AVAILABLE ON PODCAST Spotify iTunes * We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. Anais Nin. In Anna Quindlen's new book, Write for Your Life, she says that people are "made of nouns, live by verbs, and enlarge and...

What Music Teaches Us About Writing

7 Min read The Music in Prose Creative Writing Forum, West Point Sentence rhythm, Beryl Markham and David Foster Wallace Writer's Toolbox, Improve writing immediately * AVAILABLE ON PODCAST Spotify iTunes I met with the Creative Writing Forum at West Point to discuss...

Reading for Foodies

5 Min read 2 Book recs, memoir and craft Improve writing immediately AVAILABLE IN PODCAST Spotify iTunes * "Buy me five, ten, okay? That's 50, make it a 100," my mother says, leaving a Ben Franklin on the counter with two packs of TJ's peanut butter cups.* I order the...

Spandrel: Byproduct of Evolution and Thing of Beauty

3 Min read Word of the week Architecture, evolution, philosophy, philately AVAILABLE ON PODCAST On iTunes On Spotify The word of the week is spandrel. In my mind, it has vague associations with an Iberian water dog or a large red-faced primate. Spelling Bee...

Poetry for Emergencies

For milestones, crises, and the unexpected

The Edgeless Sound and the Night Owl

2 Min read Poetry for Emergencies Leonard Cohen Roshi's Poem The Poe Arch - Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Gateway AVAILABLE ON PODCAST SPOTIFY iTunes * TreeHouse view of dawn * The book falls open to Roshi's Poem. Though I had already read it, in my hurry up the stairs I...

Prescription for Life and Rumi’s Cow

2 Min read 1 Memoir, Short Take Poetry for Emergencies Rumi, Mystic Poet * AVAILABLE ON PODCAST SPOTIFY iTunes Dx, Rx. You may recognize these as abbreviations for Diagnosis (Dx) and Prescription (Rx). Melody Moezzi writes how the poet and mystic helped her deal with...

Books I Love

5 Min read 17 Books, 19.5 including mentions in footnotes Genres: Memoir, Essays, Fiction, Writing, Love, Poetry, War Toolbox, Texture in writing Contemporary and classic books from the top of my stacks, my more current reading. * The most common question I get is,...

The Sentence Fragment

3 min read Toolbox, Ages 9-99 Improve writing immediately 2 Book recs: on writing and on essays AVAILABLE ON PODCAST Spotify iTunes * (1) When you haven't seen someone you love for a while, you notice them anew. The tongue that touches the side of the mouth. The wisps...

“Keep the Faith for Which They Died”

4 Min read 3 Poems by John McCrae, a Poet Warrior Poetry for Emergencies Memorial Day The "MURPH Challenge" or Workout of the Day AVAILABLE IN PODCAST On SPOTIFY Click links above to listen to the poems This Memorial Day I read other poems written by the Canadian...

A Poet Warrior Learns Kindness

4 min read Book Rec, Tokaido Road Poetry for Emergencies AVAILABLE IN PODCAST Spotify iTunes Google Podcast It made me feel flawed as a human, this passage from Lucia St.Clair Robson's book, Tokaido Road. The protagonist Cat is disguised as a young man when she meets...

Poetry for Emergencies: Ukraine, Howard Nemerov, and the War Dead

6 Min read Howard Nemerov 2 Poems TreeHouseLetter feature: Poetry for Emergencies AVAILABLE IN PODCAST iTunes Spotify.com anchor.fm/emelle Poetry is a way of getting something right in language. Nemerov It's a batshit crazy world, especially for our friends of...

Toolbox

To improve writing, ages 9 to 99

ChatGPT on the Meaning of Life, Love, War

3 Min Read Prompts on life's mysteries Artificial Intelligence generates short answer, sonnet, couplet, haiku, blog post Writer's Toolbox OpenAI and ChatGPT * Three times a charm. I finally got onto the site in the witching hours; maybe a 3:30 AM login helps. If you...

“Good Luck and Smooth Sailing” in the Year of the Cat

3 min read Lunar New Year Vietnamese Zodiac, Cat vs Rabbit Year 2023 Writing tip, lyrics, backstory on Al Stewart's hit song * AVAILABLE ON PODCAST on SPOTIFY iTunes * Chúc mừng năm mới 2023!! Happy Lunar New Year! * It's the Year of the Water Cat according to...

How to Capture a Life in 400 Words

3 Min read The Obituary AVAILABLE ON PODCAST Spotify iTunes * Writing an obiturary is a sobering task. I'm not sure if it is harder to write one for someone you know, because I haven't had to do that. My husband wrote his parents' obituaries and my father had written...

“Pithy and Practical” – Time in Memoir

4 Min Read Time as a Literary Element The Divided Self Christmas and the Solstice Readers Call to Action AVAILABLE IN PODCAST Spotify iTunes * Not to toot my own horn, but I'll let my cousin do so. She wrote in her Christmas card that she loved the TreeHouseLetter...

Which Part of Speech Makes Up Most of the English Language?

4 Min read Toolbox, Parts of Speech 1 Book rec, grammar guide Word nerd alert Ages 9 to 99 * Let's talk about the parts of speech. As for the seven words in that sentence, the first two-- let's talk--are a sort of conundrum. They're not spoken at all, though I am...