Author: <span>D. A. Hosek</span>

Today was a largely administrative day. I overslept and missed the escort from hotel to campus, but I did manage to still arrive for the breakfast/checkin/meet and greet in the morning. This was followed by a brief orientation session and an introduction to the blackboard system that we’re to use for all of our assignments. […]

This is the first of a set of daily blog posts I intend to write about the residency for my MFA at the University of Tampa. I’m currently on a Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago to Tampa, with a suitcase full of clothes and books, a carry-on with a bunch more books, manuscripts, iPad and […]

A useful guide for plotting from Emma Coats. Via Kottke.

The question is not, he said, were you loved. Or did you love. Or did you love yourself. Or did you allow love to move you, though that’s a big one. Move you. The question, Rockwell, is did you get to be who you are And if not, then why. That, my friend, is the […]

I’m always on the lookout for new words, opportunities to push the boundaries of my vocabulary, so when I encountered the word “girning” in an A. S. Byatt short story, I had to make a note of this one. In the context, it was a whining or complaining sound (made, in this case by a […]

I’ll immortalize you, you’ll become the book I was always meant to write, the one where the forgeries of our humanity become the timeless tragedies of our race. Robert Vivian, The Mover of Bones.

A man retains the structure of integrity, even after he has sold off the shelves of goods that integrity insisted should never be sold. Michael Winter, The Big Why.

There’s only three weeks until I begin my first residency for the MFA. I’ve had the residency packet for a couple weeks and have been doing big piles of reading in preparation for this. They’ve added a few new instructors and since one of the workshop sessions will be what’s billed as a “wildcard session” […]

In the matter of belief, I have always found that defenses have the same irrelevance about them as the criticisms they are meant to answer. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.