Follow Margaret's essays at Letter from Home!
MOVING DEMOCRACY FORWARD
October 7, 2021 The history of people gathering to protest, or marching to make their minds known, is a long one. Often peaceful by intent, and just as often the last stop before violence, every protest march is one side of a conversation, a monologue inviting dialogue. Or an act of extreme frustration, Not-Power speaking to Power and not being heard. Before this young country came to be...read more |
OLD BONES, GOOD BONES
August 26, 2021 My neighbor took a panel of siding off his house a few days ago in order to replace an outdoor faucet. Because I'm a bit of a structural archaeologist, I was curious and went over early in the morning to take a closer look. The first layer under the siding was stucco, and under that, chicken wire. It was old chicken wire, a different gauge than you see today. Under that layer was wooden clapboard. I recognized it as the same...read more |
A COMPLICATION IN CORDAGE - THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF KNOTS
July 15, 2021 When you hand around with truckers and sailors you learn the language of knots. Climbers and wranglers, arborists and roustabouts - they speak this language too. You can go anywhere in the world and find someone tying a bowline. It may be called by a different name, but it's the same configuration: the rabbit goes...read more |
Welcome!
The trains go by my house 62 times a day. Some say no, 120 times a day. Now, that's a big difference. Why do some of us see double what others see, hear twice as many trains as everyone else? Has anyone actually counted? If I'm out walking by the tracks, I count the engines and wave at the engineers, and sometimes they toot their horns and wave back at me. But it's curious, don't you think, that we all see and hear different numbers of trains? I'm curious to know what you're curious about, what your mind and brain are thinking. I'd like to make this space a place of conversation. I do it by decree at this very moment: From here on out we think and ask and answer out loud to each other. Let's begin!
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Margaret Erhart earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of five novels and many essays and articles. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Best American Spiritual Writing 2005, and most recently in Northern Arizona’s Mountain Living Magazine and Flagstaff Live!. Her commentaries have aired on NPR. Her fourth novel, Crossing Bully Creek, won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. Her fifth, The Butterflies of Grand Canyon, was a finalist for an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. She has taught poetry to first-graders in Tuba City, and fiction to college students. She lives and works in Flagstaff, Arizona.
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