Blog Posts

Wooden ship hull jutting improbably out of a placid river landscape

Marginal and messy places: ‘The Inner Coast’

By Kate Blackwood / April 20, 2021

“All coasts are marginal and messy places, which is why people like me are drawn to them, I suspect,” writes Donovan Hohn. I feel the same.

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Olive green bird

Read of the week: Songbird lost at sea

By Kate Blackwood / April 2, 2021

A female scarlet tanager dropped onto the ship and for five days became a star passenger.

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City in the distance, framed by flowering trees

Book review: Pachinko

By Kate Blackwood / March 31, 2021

Love doesn’t make life easy. This family suffers loss, imprisonment, war, injury, and discrimination – the lasting social stigma placed on “Zainichi” – Koreans living in Japan.

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person under the surface of a swimming pool

Swimming is her favorite state of being: ‘Chronology of Water’

By Kate Blackwood / March 27, 2021

If we ever ended up in the same YMCA pool, Lidia would swim me out of the water. But we both know what it means to show up.

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