sometimes it is hard to find the inspiration to start writing. sitting down and staring at a blank screen and a blinking cursor, looking at lines on the page and your pen hovering above, staring into space and thinking about anything BUT writing. it happens to all of us. and some days there is a jeep surrounded by wildflowers in the middle of a field and you can’t type or write fast enough. think of your inspiration as a jeep hiding in the wildflowers. you can see it, just barely. walk through the field, feel the sun warming your skin, smell the flowers as you get closer, hear the buzzing of the bees pollinating, reach out and touch the hot metal of the jeep, imagine the hum of the engine as it takes you through a landscape of inspiration.

BOOK REVIEW: Registers of Illuminated Villages by Tarfia Faizullah
Tarfia Faizullah is a master of surprise with labyrinthine content and unique turns of line in her recent work: Registers of Illuminated Villages from Graywolf Press. I was drawn to