The Constant Harper

I was born on a snowy Christmas eve. Perhaps because of this, as a child I always embraced the Christmas season with unfettered enthusiasm. Lights, cameras, presents! And my birthday!
It was many years before I realized that not many people had any interest in my birth. But the enchantment of Christmas traditions remained with me [...]

We are accustomed to gray skies. We can take the rain, the dreary cold. But when the temperatures fall below the twenties and stay there for days, we fight back with coffee, dark as night, strong as true love, and not near as hard to find.

When I first read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a wise and wonderful book of advice for aspiring writers, I was encouraged by the author’s gentle nurturing approach. So many would-be authors falter after a few pages, daunted by the overwhelming task of building whole worlds out of mere words.
With humor and grace, Ms. [...]

A little more than a year ago I went on a road trip that wound through some of the more spectacular scenery here in the Pacific Northwest. We took in the view from Hurricane Ridge, watched orcas cresting in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and felt our own insignificance beside ancient trees in the [...]

Blue skies grow rare in Seattle come November. We measure clouds, gauge their lights and shadows, mirrored in the lakes and our liquid lives.

I once went to a truly scary movie by accident. It was “Repulsion,” a riveting psychological suspense thriller starring Catherine Deneuve as a delusional young woman alone in her apartment, imagining the worst. There was very little actual blood, no monsters lurching, biting or slashing. The horror was all in the heroine’s mind, and Ms. [...]

I only recently delved into the works of the remarkable writer Lorrie Moore, who has won honors from the likes of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and awards including the PEN/Malamud. While her short stories deliver breathtaking insight and a marvelous comic touch, she also has the ability to extend her reach. I [...]

In the years I wrote for a newspaper, my editor had a number of basic rules. Keep sentences short. Use simple words. Put no more than one idea in each sentence.
This system put a choke chain on my rambling verbosity, but, although I learned to keep it short, tight and focused during the decade I [...]

The other day I saw a guy, a kid really, wearing artfully paint-spattered pants, a black T-shirt, and a pout, crossing the street while I waited in my car for the light to change. At first I smiled to myself, thinking how predictable it is to see the next generation go through its rebellious stage. [...]