I have a new story in The Stinging Fly. It’s about apples and woodturners, sort of.
I haven’t done too much woodworking lately, not since last Spring when I finished my blanket chest. Our place is so small, there’s only so much room for another box, bowl, or coffee table. But some things from the past few years filtered into my story.
Like the woodpile at Ian’s parents’ home on the Oregon coast; the chalky cedary smell of woodshops; time spent in slow and patient purpose; bark, burl, rings; a little bowl I turned from some sweet-smelling apple; a tin helmet I saw when wandering around Portland one day; and this fog that won’t lift and makes me wonder is the world out there at all.
The Spring issue of The Stinging Fly looks beautiful, as ever, is available to order online, and will be in (Irish) bookshops very soon.
Lovely work! You obviously are a multi-talented person!
Eeek, not really. I think it’s more that I have the patience to whittle away at a tiny section of the world for hours on end and kind of enjoy tedious, repetitive work 🙂
Isn’t that the way of the writer, that things from the past seep into your stories? Well, of course it is, with this writer anyway. Well done.