Pat Perrin's Blog, page 5
April 6, 2020
The Cleansing (Holy Monday) — a short play
Characters: Mary and Martha Jesus Judah Ben-Hur The scene is the Mount of Olives; Jesus sits on a stone bench staring forward; Mary enters, followed by Martha. MARY (to MARTHA). I’ve found him. MARTHA. Where? MARY. Sitting right here like nothing happened. MARTHA (to JESUS). What do you think you’re doing? JESUS. Watching. MARY. For […]
December 2, 2019
Amid the Ashes of the House of Commons — London, May 1941
And Churchill wept as he saw his beloved House in ruins. —Vernon Bartlett Deliverance wears thus a mocking face, the last bomb of the last raid stabbing sharp and deep into our moral belly. How rapidly may men, unteachable from infancy to tomb, match long eroding centuries in ruin! As England sighs reprieve and licks […]
November 24, 2019
Collaboration and Creativity
I’m admiring the RC James song post of Wim’s poem, and other related pairs that show up on the Open Arts Forum (great place for creative people showing work and exchanging ideas). Collaboration can be like a conversation … Hey, is this what you meant? or How about this in addition to/instead of …? That can contribute mightily […]
August 7, 2019
“A Connecticut Yankee” in Trump’s America
Every several years, I have to re-read Mark Twain’s novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court just to make sure I got it right. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that’s so unlike its reputation, and it never loses its power to unsettle me. I finished re-reading it recently, and I found […]
May 19, 2019
Cold-Blooded Kindness …
Did anybody need a reminder that we’re living through mean times? Whether we needed it or not, we’re getting one right now, as states enact anti-abortion laws that have virtually nothing to do with protecting human life and a everything to do with controlling women’s lives and bodies. What has gone so terribly wrong with our […]
Empathy: Its Limits and Dangers …
Did anybody need a reminder that we’re living through mean times? Whether we needed it or not, we got one last week when the Alabama Senate passed a draconian abortion law that has virtually nothing to do with protecting human life and a everything to do with controlling women’s lives and bodies. What has gone […]
April 26, 2019
Beach Scene
—excerpted from Thing of Darkness, a novel-in-progress by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin The tide was coming in. The wide beach where people and dogs had been playing earlier in the day was rapidly growing narrow, and no one was in sight. My timing was excellent—not just the hour but the season. While I especially love […]
April 24, 2019
On the Literary Map
The North Carolina Literary Map has put up pages for each of us, listing our mainstream novels, anthologized works, and many of the titles from our years of making a living writing for educational publishers. Since most of our work is co-authored, the lists are much alike except for Pat’s book about unicorns and Wim’s […]
January 19, 2019
in translation…
This week I was delighted to receive a Polish translation of one of my stories. It was attached to a very nice email from Elżbieta Kalinowska of Wroclaw University asking to use my retelling of a West African myth in a book she’s working on. I promptly gave permission for the story, a shorter version […]
October 18, 2018
Weaponized Love (poem)
We’re told it’s only been unleashed one time by a lone fanatical guerrilla sent by some silent foreign power. People talk about him all the time, but most don’t dare think too much about his self-immolation— how he cold-bloodedly provoked the fury of priests and prefect to detonate the deadly charge of love strapped to […]
