But What Are You For?

a writing exercise for paid subscribers

In darker times, I think a lot about framing. That’s probably some hangover from the self-help era of my thirties. An exercise someone gave me once: finish an explanation of any negative event and say: this is good because…

I’m coming up a little empty in the spin zone these days.

Inishbofin, Ireland, 2015

I’m often asked when I became a writer. Precisely, it was sixth grade, when I wrote a story my beloved teacher Bonnie Kane read outloud to my class. Imprecisely, the kind of writer I became began when I moved to a city in South Carolina I hated, and I learned a lot about what I didn’t like.

I was such an angry teenager that not liking things came easily.