Alison McGhee's Blog, page 50

Some places I like to visit

[image error]The web is large and intricate, and completely beyond my comprehension - how do these words get to you, anyway, you whomever you are and wherever you may be? - but most things are beyond my comprehension, and I do them anyway.

Take driving, for example. I have no idea how my car works. Here's what I can do: put in gas, check the oil and add more if necessary, check the tires and add more air if necessary, wash it, vacuum it, and speak to it encouragingly. Yet I zip around in it as if I were...

For most this amazing day

[image error]As she left the church of the non-churchy a few weeks ago, she was a little late in joining the line of people filing out, because she had to gather up the strands of wool and knitting needles and stuff them into the bag containing the Scarf of Endlessness, so named because she does not know how to cast off, meaning that she will be knitting it for the rest of her life.

The scarf could also be called the Scarf of Continuing Mistakes, given that she cannot remember how many rows she's knit and ...

Book Give-away

It's publication time for the brand-new "Bink & Gollie," a book for young readers that I co-wrote with Kate DiCamillo, and to celebrate, I'll be giving away three copies. Bink & Gollie contains three stories about two best friends, one tall and skinny, one short and loud. We had tons of fun writing this book and I hope you have fun reading it.

To be entered, either send me an email or hit "like" on my Facebook author page. Rest assured that even though I can't reply to everyone individually...

From the land of enchantment

[image error]Do you have a few minutes? If so, click here and read the first story.

Why aren't there more stories like this anymore? So beautiful.

If, at first glance, that particular story looks too long for you, scroll down and read something shorter. I highly recommend "Some Things I Say to My Dog" and "Lost Ghost in the City of Light," but I highly recommend many entries in this particular blog.

It's enchanting.

Enjoy.

Bring me your piles of green

[image error]See that to the left there, that photo? That is what we call les courgettes, people. I can see you all now, rolling your eyes, ready to launch into the annual moan and groan of those whose gardens overfloweth with zucchini.

Don't.

Bring them to me instead. Here's the deal: I love zucchini, love love love it, and somehow it knows that and refuses to grow in my garden. I'd take a crappy cell phone photo of how nastily it doesn't grow in my garden and post it here, but that would make me even...

Life and Hope in Haiti

[image error]I'm involved with a wonderful, grassroots non-profit, Life and Hope Haiti, which has built a school in northwest Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in our hemisphere, and Life and Hope Haiti works to provide an education, basic needs and medical services to its students and their community. They are in need of both volunteers and money.

I'm kicking off a personal fundraising effort by pledging to donate $1 (up to $999) for each new person who clicks "Like" on my Facebook author page, which...

- and hid his face among a crowd of stars

When she was a girl she built a treehouse in the giant maple. She wanted to be high up, above the earth. There she lay on the wooden platform, looking up into the green leaves. She carved her name on a limb and watched as, over the years, the tree fattened around her initials, finally absorbing them.

[image error]This was in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, in far upstate New York, where on summer mornings she walked down the road to see the sun rise over the fields. When she grew older she...

Living in a Rock and Roll Fantasy

[image error]She was twenty years old, living in Taipei for half a year with the intention of improving her Chinese.  The city was large and gray and crowded. Pungent smells of cooking oil and stirfry and garbage filled the humid air.

It was a city of narrow streets, crooked buildings, packed buses and haphazard sidewalks onto which cars drove at will. She and two Chinese roommates lived in a fourth-floor walk-up just off Roosevelt Avenue.

This was a long time ago. The city was still under martial law...

Everyone Wants to Be Found

[image error]That title is the tagline from a movie you loved. You remember it as "Everyone wants to be known," but when you looked it up today you found that you were wrong.

Found, not known.

You thought of this line today  as you finished reading a book that you loved. It was one of those novels that you wished would just keep going, and as the pages dwindled you pushed yourself faster and faster on the porch swing, angry because you knew it was going to end.

You thought you knew how the story itself was g...

You May Find Yourself in a Beautiful House

[image error]She had a dream last night that she's had on and off for the last ten years.

The dream goes like this: She's in a house that she lives in and knows intimately.

But she discovers a whole new part of the house that she never  knew existed, and she goes through it, exploring, and wondering at all the space that has been there, all this time, unbeknownst to her.

The original dream always took place in a dream-created house, a perfectly round house with bedrooms off the central round hallway. The...