Blog Posts

Illustration of a planet and a glowing star

Read of the week: The point of view of the alien

By Kate Blackwood / July 18, 2021

Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger catalogues the clock of celestial bodies, turning the point of view back toward Earth: how might THEY find us, and what might we look like to them?

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Plastic bin neatly stacked with colored notebooks

Read of the week: Note-taking

By Kate Blackwood / July 10, 2021

This post by magazine writer Ben Mauk has renewed my appetite for taking note of the world. And encouraged me to buy a new notebook.

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Two people sit at a table with a rose centerpiece

Mother stories

By Kate Blackwood / May 9, 2021

As I celebrate Mother’s Day this year with a visit from my own amazing mom, I’m thinking of mother characters who play central – and complicated – roles in novels I’ve read this year.

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beach beside a river, fog

What I didn’t expect from a place I’ve never been: Action in “Mendocino Fire”

By Kate Blackwood / March 6, 2021

The way she tells it, it’s happening before you know it’s happening, much the same way the character is plunged into the sea or down a steep drop or into the vortex of an irrevocable relational tangle. The prose is swift and unexpectedly physical.

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