Sloth signals a deep and enduring commitment to the couch. Having spent a little while on bed rest earlier this year, I understand this Sloth well. Though Sloth was imposed on me, my pregnant body with its rusty joints and swollen limbs settled pretty quickly into my pre-birth berth. The to-do list grew longer by…
This deadly Monday, go green and consider what you most Envy. Cheryl Wilder and I continue our series at Hunger Mountain with my essay on the green-eyed monster. I had a lot of fun surveying seven writers about their Envy, admitting my own, and writing it all into this piece. True to the essay's form, I discovered new…
In your writing life, if you are anything like me, you've scrolled through new book deals on Publishers Marketplace and been seized by Envy. You've abandoned your essay and spent four Slothful hours poking around online when you meant to just look up the difference between "continual" and "continuous." You've felt too Proud to accept…
MFA candidates at Vermont College of Fine Arts are required to write a critical thesis during the third semester of study. At first I said that I wanted to write about celebrity memoir, the critically maligned but lucrative arm of the memoir genre. In short, I wanted to know if any were good, and I…
"Retail Therapy," a piece I wrote a couple years ago in a flash and recently pulled back out for a quick facelift, is on Tiny Lights. I absolutely love their Flash in the Pan section. The inspiring description, a good reminder for all writers: "Writers have a lot in common with the prospectors who swarmed California…
Suzanne Farrell Smith 