fear – Page 3 – The Trailer Park MFA

On Death and Defiance

A few years back I attended a reading by Carolyn Jessop who had escaped a fundamentalist Mormon community. Piled her children in a van in the middle of the night and made a run for it. She’d written her memoir, published as Escape (2008), and now was reading at Third Place Books. She had receivedContinue reading “On Death and Defiance”

Extreme Sport: Facing Your Fears

So I’ve been on a writing retreat with my novel the last few days and am glad to get back to blogging! And from the quiet space of that retreat, I return to say yet again: one of the most terrifying things about the artistic process is its vulnerability. If you’ve ever seen The King’s Speech,Continue reading “Extreme Sport: Facing Your Fears”

Rage Against the Dying of the Light

I inherited my mother’s rage. And she had a lot to be angry about. Growing up in small-town Kennewick in the 1950s and 1960s, she was told she couldn’t do what the boys did. Couldn’t race bikes out in the street. Couldn’t beat them at math. So she did. But, as a consequence, she couldn’tContinue reading “Rage Against the Dying of the Light”

Fear of the Unknown

I’m not sure I understand writer’s block. A student came to me asking how she could overcome her anxiety about writing. She said she was afraid that she would write her essay, and it wouldn’t be perfect. “Okay,” I said. “So it’s not perfect. Look–I find it helpful to imagine the very worst thing thatContinue reading “Fear of the Unknown”

Terror and Hope

“Make art from the places that terrify you,” my artistic mentor, Amy O, said this time last year. And it has proven good advice. Most of us have a lot of things that terrify us, and that turns out to be a good thing. If you’re an artist. But a surprising thing happens when youContinue reading “Terror and Hope”