If I’ve read Dear Mr. Henshaw once – and I established in this month’s installment of With Apologies to Hornby that I recently did – I’ve read it at least 50 times. From fourth through most of eighth grade, that book was my go-to. I’d read it, close it, flip to the beginning and start …
Category: Why I Write
An intermittent exploration of the people, places, and things that compel me to tell stories.
Why I Write: Writing from the Hartt
“I feel like a farmer watching his corn grow. This is great!” It was another Wednesday morning at The Stowe Reporter, the weekly newspaper in Stowe, VT, that gave me my first full-time job as a reporter. We were up against our deadline, and I was in my office, pounding out the last article I …
WHY I WRITE: Unpacking the Past
I was up in the attic yesterday, finally putting away Christmas decorations and doing a bit of reorganizing. In addition to those tasks, I hoped to find three items that were packed away … somewhere. Somehow, I found all three things together in the second or third storage bin I opened. They were stacked neatly …
Why I Write: A Writer Named Chris
I’ve spent a lot of time in the town of Comfort Rock, VT, the past couple of years. To some degree, I've gone there every day over the past two decades. And it’s certainly been around the blog a bit these past few days. Plus plenty more to come. Visiting Comfort Rock feels like going …
Why I Write: A Note From Death Row
For the past 33 years or so, I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression. Unfortunately, I’ve only know what it was for about 18 years. Prior to that, the dark hopelessness of depression was written off as being a moody kid, and the awful, ever-present feeling of anxiety in my gut was dismissively deemed an ulcer. …
Why I Write: Summer 1990, pt. 2
Sitting in the cab of the TW-10 Ford tractor, I cranked the volume on the radio to hear it over the sound of the machinery running behind me, churning out freshly chopped grass. I was just in time to hear Jack Barry introduce his guest for the next segment. He was an author. But not …
Why I Write: Summer 1990, pt. 1
If you’ve ever had to unload a wagon full of freshly chopped grass into a concrete haylage bunker, you know there’s a trick to it. To get a decent row of wet, green grass fed out along the open front of the bunker, you need to maneuver the tractor and the wagon behind it back …
