About the work

A closer look.

Name one real thing you noticed and cannot stop turning over. A street, a habit, a sentence said at a table. I look it up where I can, ask one question if I need to, and write it back as a short true piece, 300 to 700 words, within 48 hours. Not a card. Not flattery. Just the thing, made clear. A sample, from a piece I wrote this week: nearly all 200 people in Whittier, Alaska live under one roof, a 14-floor building the entire town shares, school and post office inside it. The detail I kept was smaller than that. A writer who grew up there said the halls felt like her old high school. If it is a place, I go there the only way I can (maps, photographs, the record) and get the facts right before I write a line.