Joseph R. Goodall's Blog, page 4

Screens, Screening, Screened

Screens

Many days are spent looking at screens

Information, plans, stories and advertisements projected onto backlit rectangles

Formatted to keep my attention, to distract, to engage

I pause looking at one screen to be absorbed by another

My gaze captured by entertaining snapshots from other people’s lives

Work reports, email threads, reminders and to-do lists

Curated news stories presenting an interpretation of current events around the globe

Treatises of what is wrong, and how to analy...

Going "Home"

Going home can stir up a strange mix of affection and anxiety, bringing to mind memories both fond and painful. We revisit the person, now old and gray, who did ‘those’ things, pass by the tree where ‘that’ happened, walk through the room where she said ‘that.’

"Home" - the building, the patch of earth, the institutions that formed us - can carry scars, too, just like our bodies. Whether we only occasionally travel to our literal hometown, have never left it, or visit only in the unbidden rec...

City Boy

Seven, eight, nine interstate overpasses sheltered the paved walking trail, which wound between graffitied columns and green-painted steel trusses along a hidden, rocky creek.

Rippled concrete slopes formed the walls of the valley through which Braxton and his cousin Robert walked. A swelling roar echoed around them as eighteen wheelers thudded across joints in a bridge deck, zooming overhead at sixty miles an hour. Taking the lead, Braxton had a Tupac album playing on a tiny speaker in his bac...

How Short Stories Can Teach Us to Be Present

The other day I was stuck in a long, unmoving line at the neighborhood post office. I debated leaving and trying my luck another day, but having just published my first collection of short stories, I decided it was an opportunity as a writer to practice observing my surroundings.

Still living in the shadow of a pandemic, I was accompanied by a dozen masked strangers, impatience welling in their eyes as they clutched onto envelopes and packages, staring down at phone screens or up at the saggi...

The Limping Farmer

This story is an excerpt from my new short story collection, What the Bird Sees in Flight , being released in paperback and ebook on April 27. Available for purchase now from online booksellers.

Matamata, 1957

"Isla, hand me that bucket will you, love?" Duncan took the bucket from his wife and slopped the pigs. He leaned over, wincing, as the hefty animals swarmed around them.

Isla stood tall, her gum boots sinking in the mud as she held Duncan’s arm steady. Her face wrinkled as it twisted ...

The Raccoon's Eyes

As weeks turned to months, June formed a ritual of thumbing through the pictures of her and Patrick every night before bed. Her mother’s faint wheezes rose and fell as June flicked from one image to the next on her phone screen, trying to re-enter the fond memories without succumbing to tears at the thought of Patrick traipsing across Europe without her.

She had to wait almost an hour, her hand in her mother’s, before turning out the light and retreating to her cot on the floor. Otherwise, m...

america, the beautiful (Guest Post)

Ceasar A. Cruz, a Mexican poet and gang violence prevention advocate, has been attributed to say, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” One of my values in curating this writing blog is to share voices and perspectives different than mine that simultaneously challenge and inspire. My friend, Brandan, is a poet who does just that with his art. He was generous to share this poem, which channels raw emotion through the use of a familiar American song.

May you slow down ...

The Weight of a Single Word: Black American Stories

Storytelling is one of the most empowering acts in the human experience. A storyteller has the ability to uniquely curate each piece of their tale - the plot, characters, setting, language and tone - in a way that leaves their fingerprints on us, the audience. While the teller cannot control how a listener interprets their message, they alone choose how the story is communicated, ideally without the filter or editing of another’s bias. Being immersed in a well-written narrative leaves us vulner...

The Humanizing Effect

I feel a great draw to understand the “why” behind the emotions and decisions of people around me, to “humanize” them. Sometimes it’s because I want a gloriously confusing world to make more sense, but at my best it’s because I crave belonging and connection, to be seen and known and for others to experience the same.

Stories can inspire us to love and reach out for connection, and yet stories can also stoke the flames of anger and hatred. Stories can encourage us to understand another pers...

The Whales Beneath

An excerpt from "What the Bird Sees in Flight: Collected Stories of a New Zealand Farming Family." Available for purchase in paperback and ebook from online book sellers.

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Tory Channel, 1956

The small fishing boat tacked east and west, making its way south along the Tory Channel toward Picton. The two men aboard were broad shouldered, with knit caps over their long, dark hair. Rocks jutted upward sharply from the sea to starboard. Beyond them, the land formed a backdrop of brown wrinkle...