May 12Reading in the FamilyMy mother had too many books in her house in Los Angeles. In London, I am the same. I try my best to clear them out regularly, taking them to Oxfam, if only to make space for new books, new acquisitions. It is a kind of a mania, something I…Reading6 min readReading6 min read
Apr 23Notes From Now: A Trip to Madrid, Thinking About UnionsEarlier this month, I flew to Madrid to spend the weekend with my cousin, Elke, who was there visiting her son. Elke and I have not seen each other in twelve years, even though we talk on the phone often. We grew up in Los Angeles together; our fathers are…Marriage10 min readMarriage10 min read
Mar 3Member-onlyNotes from Now: Travelling to Newcastle with Iris DeMentOn the train ride from London to Newcastle, listening to the new Iris DeMent album, her first song, Workin’on a World, filled me. The English landscape on its east coast side slipped by, the flat farmlands, small streams, sheep, scruffy yards, pop up new villages with their square family houses…Newcastle5 min readNewcastle5 min read
Published inWriters in the Dark London·Apr 4, 2022Pathetic Fallacy is Real: Our April 1st Writing in the Dark ExerciseThe first day of April in London was like the last day in March: a blindingly bright blue sky crossed with suddenly dark clouds, snow flurries that blurred the air and then vanished. The wind swirled snowflakes and blossoms together. As Patricia Lockwood says in Priestdaddy, “pathetic fallacy is real”…Writing4 min readWriting4 min read
Published inWriters in the Dark London·Feb 18, 2022Zuihitsu: text that drifts like a cloudOutside the window the sky a fast-changing sequence of cloud, dark and light, and bright, blue sky. The wind swishes the tall underwater grasses of bare trees; a sparrow hawk lands in my garden, huddles on a fig arm, lifts off. Last night before the storm, my daughter left her…Storms3 min readStorms3 min read
Published inWriters in the Dark London·Dec 17, 2021Member-onlyA New Kind of Family PhotographI am going through the photographs, trying to find images to post to my husband’s office calendar. This year, he did not go into the office at all, so the collection of pictures that I have been making for him since our children were small, to carry family stories into…Family3 min readFamily3 min read
Published inWriters in the Dark London·Dec 10, 2021Member-onlyWriting in the Dark of DecemberWe are a group of artists, writers and creatives from around the world who live in London and meet regularly for “writing in the dark” sessions. What comes out is often inspired by shared prompts, happenstance and the group energy. We sometimes put the results here on our Writers in…Creativity5 min readCreativity5 min read
Jun 29, 2021Member-onlyWhat is Writing for?Walking and Writing around the Woodbury Wetlands For years, I have belonged to a writing group I started with my friend Lucy, a playwright. We started the group we called “Writers in the Dark” because we both felt estranged from our writing and we wanted to create a space where we gave ourselves permission to write wildly…Writing5 min readWriting5 min read
Published inWriters in the Dark London·Jun 29, 2021Member-onlyWriting at Woodberry WetlandsOn 25th of June, 2021, four of us met for the first time since the lockdown — for a walk and a writing session at the Woodberry Wetlands reservoir in Stamford Hill, London. Here are our quick impressions, offered as a way to share the intense pleasure we all felt…Writing4 min readWriting4 min read
Published inWriters in the Dark London·Jan 8, 2021Member-onlyAn Exquisite CorpseExquisite corpses? Wild writing? Exquisite corpse is the term for a method of collaborative working whereby a number of artists or writers sequentially contribute to a story or a drawing. …26 min read26 min read
