I fingered the treasures in my pocket as I strolled to the tree that hovered over the creek. It had no soil under it. Roots dangled through the air, then plunged straight and deep into rushing water. Fish swam between roots. With soil between roots the tree had sheltered a rabbit burrow, not swimming fish….
Shannon Grissom is a painter, author and television host who gives folks the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at her life and the creative process. Shannon started the blog “Monkey Made of Sockies” as a way to share her new monkey paintings. The blog is now evolving into a quirky examination of the seriously…
This flash fiction of 3 parts, or panels, was originally published in The Portland Review. I’m posting it on Riehlife in three parts. “Triptych: Jeweled Bones” links to an on-going theme of how the land nurtures us as writers and creative people. Arletta Dawdy found inspiration in this piece and I’ll be posting her story-poem…
When I was growing up we still put up hay by hand, rode horses, milked cows, butchered, gardened and put up our own food, and sewed up ruptured hogs. But, most of all, when I was growing up the land nurtured me as a dreamer. The land raised me as a poet and writer. I…
Walter Logeman of Christchurch, New Zealand is currently engaged (in addition to his otherwise busy life) in a Thousand Sketches project: he plans to do a thousand sketches on a Tablet PC in one year’s time. Check out his efforts at his blog, they are pretty cool. He does great horses!
Reader Views features my father Erwin A. Thompson on their homepage this week. This is the article released on PR Web today: Born in Schuyler County, Illinois, in 1915, Erwin A. Thompson has lived on the bluffs of the Mississippi River for nine decades in the house his grandfather built in 1863. A unique gem…
Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach. She designs and leads training programs on writing, giving presentations, and holding productive meetings. She is also a writer, speaker and artist. Her work has been published in Somerset Studio Magazine; The Crafts Report; Crafts Business Magazine; Sunshine Artist; Cloth, Paper, Scissors; Bead & Button, BeadWork, and American…
Persimmon, sasafrass, and ash Reclaim the land that once was theirs. “Submarginal”, the experts say. Once, hillside plows were used to turn The fertile ground. It nurtured, and produced the crops, Sustained, with money crops, and food The pioneers. They didn’t have a guarantee of annual wage. Their maps, drawn out with pointed sticks In…
Catherine is a poet, family historian and occasional quiltmaker who blogs about these topics in words and images, along with anything else that takes her fancy. Catherine and Eric chat about mindfulness techniques for finding a creative focus – in particular for those whose energies are necessarily spread in several directions (day job, family, and…
Today I’m part of an invited poetry reading for the Land Trust in Lake County up here in Northern California. We’ll read at Rodman Slough. One of the poems I’ll read will be one of my favorites, and one I consider to be my father’s most powerful. Here are my father’s comments on his poem–It…