As of August 30, 2022, I’m at various stages of completion with the following books:
Things I have Withheld, a book of essays by Kei Miller
You Can’t Lost in Cape Town, a collection of related short stories by Zoë Widcomb
The Autobiography of My Mother, a novel by Jamaica Kincaid
I should get done with all of these in about a month. I’ll post brief impressions. I’m also but a few pages into Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
I’ve decided to become a writer. Again. Some people say they always knew they wanted to become writers. Not me. I didn’t read voraciously as a child, and when I became really interested in language and literature in high school, I still didn’t know that you could just be a writer.
Even in university, where I took a fiction writing course and several literature courses, it still didn’t occur to me. So I became a journalist. I was writing every day, and I enjoyed several aspects of it, but I didn’t consider myself a writer. I was only writing on the clock, never reading much and giving very little thought to my future interaction with language. Starting this year, I will give writing a fuller go.
I’m enrolled in a creative writing MFA at The University of British Columbia, and I’ve recently left full-time employment mainly to have more freedom with regard to family time. But I’ve also decided to write for work. To oil the rusty writing muscle that’s been sitting almost idle all these years. I live in Tokyo and will take on project, part-time or freelance work here. Or from anywhere, really, as long as it’s convenient.
On this blog, I will post about re-engaging with writing, and about anything else I feel like. Mostly, those things might surround being a parent, running or books I’m reading.