Waywords Studio
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!
On Stepping Forward, Street Action, and Gratitude
24 November 2024 Stepping Forward . . . Hey, everyone! As I wrote to the Waywords Street Team last week, the Mission for Waywords has always been one of engagement. Critical literacy becomes increasingly vital in communities polarized or isolated, globalized or caffeinated. Growing such literacy–and with it, ideals of democracy, inquiry, dialogue, tolerance, and peace–is the mission of Waywords Studio. We read the world to develop our skill with language, our efficacy in engaging it, in...
What Comes Now?
17 November 2024 What Comes Now? Well, Reader, Whatever is ahead for the US and the world, our reading and writing thoughtfully, in significance, will be more important than ever. Young folks largely understand how to emote publicly (though performatively); but it's important that they read models of discourse both honest and measured, not build upon the provocative hyperbole and absolutism which threatens to topple reason. Equally, though, as individuals and communities hurting emerge...
On Translating Terror, Literary Zombies, & Inevitable Metaphor
27 October 2024 13 Days of Essays on Horror Hey, everyone! As I write this, I've completed some analyses of the differences between book and film of Frankenstein, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. But still several ahead, including works by Lovecraft, Bradbury, King, Barker, and Jackson. No surprise, successfully transplanting horror between two mediums --or we might just as well say 'Transplanting theme between two mediums'--requires more than mere...
On Horror, Pilgrims, and Poetry Power
13 October 2024 I think I've repressed many of the scenes from Richard Adams's The Girl In A Swing. I do remember having to set the book down in fright, and that's not a small thing for me. That was maybe 35 years ago, now, but the memory of the read itself still haunts me. Who would have expected this from the guy who wrote that rabbit story? (Though even here, the image of General Woundwort emerging from the rabbit den is harrowing enough.) It's a good time for hauntings, and I've thought a...
On Tomatoes, Zombies, and Other Tales
29 Sept 2024 I've spent much of this last week recording the audiobook for Unwoven, and now I'm learning about the very different process for publishing/releasing such a thing: contracts, studio requisites, alignment with existing print offerings, and options/rights for a variety of markets. Partly, it seems a business that has quickly hobbled itself together 20 years ago and never quite recovered. On the other hand, I could not be happier so far with my publishing partner. And now I'm...
Closing In On Fall
1 Sept. 2024 Closer to Fall So much done and so much undone! That seems to be the eternal ode we live by. The home native plant project (no more lawn!) has gone well here in its second year, I have a book (nearly) published, and I've been steadily bringing Waywords more fully online, now three years in to my five-year goals for it. But much left! The new planting table and Little Free Library haven't been built, I've got the first Waywords online course to pull off before the calendar year,...
Where is Waywords?
25 August 2024 You gotta wonder . . . In the last newsletter, I talked a bit about the challenges of work process, balancing content creation and business management, and the like. Equally important (and even more so) is communication with all of you, my subscribers and members! So here is an update on Waywords and the re-energizing of that communication. I am grateful for your patience and support as I slow launch this enormous program. Here's what's going on and what's just ahead. A New...
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!