Shout Out to All Our Wonderful Interns!

If you have spent time with us here at the Wellstone Center – it does not matter in which capacity – you know that we would not be able to do half of what we do, especially not with so much grace and joy, without our resident interns. Now you are all gone! Theodore, a beautiful soul with a biting sense …

Unite and Conquer the Heart

It is difficult to think of anything else but the election this week. And it might be like this for a while. I wonder what this means for our creativity. If we are captivated by angry, upsetting thoughts, it can be impossible to rise to a state of airy lightness where our ideas can spin free. We keep being pulled …

First words… last words

With books it’s like with life itself: A big deal is made of first and last words. As writers we think long about how to start a sentence and especially how we want a book to start. We might have favorite first sentences. I often flip to the last page of a book and read the last sentence. Why did …

Steve’s Blog: Lessons on Writing From This Year’s Nobel Winner

 I’m a poet, and I know it/Hope I don’t blow it.   The news out of Stockholm last month was startling, no doubt: Rather than choosing a novelist for the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature (I was pulling for Murakami), the Nobel Prize jury was awarding this year’s top literary honor to … Bob Dylan. Reaction was mixed. Much snark shot around social media, and …