This week I wondered, what are you supposed to do with this feeling art can give you? What if it follows you, to the office, to the classroom? What if it exceeds the space of a page, or a room? I read a novel this week, A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore,…

Days in the city have been marked by pale, blank skies, temperate weather and a damp chill. A new semester begins, and the hallways of my workplace are feverish with students. No marking yet, so there are tiny bits of time to cook, or read a novel, between writing and festival submissions and the…

The hospital’s on a barren, windswept city corner, abrupt, austere, final. The entrance is bare bones. It greets you uncertainly: there’s no reception, just someone behind glass who quickly turns away from you when you arrive, and buzzes you in. Nowhere to ask anything, not that you know what to ask. Not even a…