thanks for thoughts re: honesty in writing as well. more soon.

But it’s difficult to be true to subjects, I think. What we see has as much to do with us, if not more, than it does with the people we’re “studying.”

Beautiful little portrait. These are just the kind of details that manage to tell a complex story in a matter of sentences.

On another note, I can’t believe that the above are photos from your backyard. I am indescribably jealous.

Really is a metaphor for how we meander through life. Painting complete pictures of others from the very little we’ve glimpsed of their lives.

Psyched that that notebook has been publishing some “micronotes.” Very exciting stuff to be getting involved with–and somehow not surprised Matador has taken it on.

Also back on transparency– I re-read this (http://retwt.me/1GSDf) and thought I’d mention to you that last fall I took a Literary Journalism class for my creative writing minor at Colgate University. One of our most discussed issues for journalists was how much of yourself to put into the writing, how much do you recognize your connection with your subject, how do you provide full disclosure, etc. (We spoke of this–and also read–in terms of Joan Didion, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson). Very interesting and important topic. The class was taught by Jennifer Brice, a wonderful nonfiction writer from Alaska who has written extensively on growing up there. Her most recent book is Learning to Fly and I would definitely recommend checking it out as an example of literary travel/place narrative that’s very honest in a memoir-like way. It seems like something right up the alley of you and the rest of the Matador eds, writers, readers.

once i heard bradford cox of deerhunter say if people would just keep playing music without trying to sound like each other then it all be so much more interesting (or something).

that’s how i feel about writing too. if everyone just kept blazing away without worrying about anything else than getting the words down how they needed to sound to them (the writers themselves) then… i dunno.

the point i guess is to just keep charging.

and oh yeah, i forgot to mention about the ‘microfiction’ point you raised. right now there is less of a ‘market’ or existing audience for hypercondensed nonfiction writing, although we are publishing some on the notebook.

sometimes i just submit nonfiction work in super condensed form as fiction just to get it out to places.

one of these was this past spring, a magazine called rumble:http://www.rumble.sy2.com/stories/notes_miller.html

have you checked out the six sentences writing community?