vanwestervelt
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Greetings, everyone. This is one of my favorites (though I feel like I keep saying that about every sonnet that I read). Truth is, I’m a Shakespeare nut, so maybe all 154 are favorites… Anyway, today’s reading is Sonnet 98, another appropriate choice for our days of isolation as we stay close together…at a distance.…
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Today is day 5 of National Poetry Month, where I am sharing a reading of a sonnet each day with my students and my followers. Today’s sonnet comes from Sophie Jewett (aka Ellen Burroughs), and American poet who lived in New York. Jewett published “A Friendship” in a collection of poems in 1896 titled, The…
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Welcome to Day 4 of National Poetry Month. Today, I am reading a sonnet by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an British poet who lived during the Romantic Era at the turn of the 19th century. This sonnet, titled, “On A Discovery Made Too Late,” is vintage Coleridge, burning hot with passion, deep emotion, and regret. Enjoy!…
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When I was much younger, I would stand on the side of the road watching the fireworks being launched off of “Luskin’s Hill” just about a mile from my home. With each new sonic boom and brilliant blast of color, amidst the chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” that weaved through the crowd like the ripples…
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On January 1, I set out to develop and publish an 11-episode podcast called, “When Fire Reigns.” It’s about the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and the mayor who died just three months later, reportedly by his own doing. Today, I published the first episode, just one day before the 115-year anniversary of the great…
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Now that Fossil Five is in the hands of my editors, I have decided to devote the month of January to building a podcast series on the Baltimore Fire of 1904. It was my thesis project in grad school, and after listening to a bunch of podcasts this past week, I think it is the…
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This weekend, I was enthralled by a blog post shared by Mark Willen (“Sexual Assault: When Real Life and Fiction Collide”), who was pondering how his published works hold up in the #MeToo era. As a result of Mark’s post, which was weighing heavily on my mind today, I decided to ask a few writers/teachers about…
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It’s 4:56 a.m., and I have just dropped off my daughter at work. I pour a fresh cup of coffee, sit down in front of my laptop, and open my working revision of my latest novel, Fossil Five. Seven days to go, I think. Seven days until I release my story to 15 readers around…
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About 15 years ago, in the pre-dawn darkness, I stood outside the brand new Starbucks in Dulaney Plaza and waited patiently for them to open their doors for the first time. I enjoyed being a part of the coffee store’s grand opening, and for years I frequented it often, learning the names of the new…
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