STRANGER THAN FICTION
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
—Mark Twain
FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT
“That’s the beauty of argument. If you argue correctly, you’re never wrong.”
—Christopher Buckley
EXPANDING BEYOND
“Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.”
—Criss Jami
THE SUPER POWER OF LANGUAGE
“Language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.”—Octavio Paz
JAM SESSION
“I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them.”
—Haruki Murakami
THEME PARK
“Repeat the good. And the bad. Do it all…and pile on the years.”
―Natsuki Takaya
WALK THE TALK
“Every flower blooms at a different pace.”
—Suzy Kassem
LET THERE BE LIGHT
“Without the emotion of the beautiful, the sublime, the mysterious, there is no art, no religion, no literature.”
—John Burroughts
Get the “Writers at Large” Newsletter sent to your inbox
LATEST FROM RIFF
Turning Point
Many years ago when I was in college, I took a theology course on Spirituality. The professor, Fr. Gibbons, was also a columnist for a Catholic...
In Praise of Working on Two Novels at the Same Time
A couple of years ago, I hit a wall with my debut novel, 142 Ostriches. I was so frustrated working on it that I literally felt nauseous when I...
THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT: Spoiler Alert!
Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved immersing myself in a story and a world not my own. So, when friends began talking about The Queen’s Gambit...
New. Year. Count. Down.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I know exactly what I’m wearing to the first celebratory anything I attend when this wretched pandemic...
ME, MYSELF, & WHY
(Riff—a phrase synonymous with tune, refrain, groove, sample, jam, strum, noodle—only here "riff" plays with words instead of lyrics or strings.)...
OLD ARGUMENTS, WON AND LOST
My husband has always had ideas—lots of ideas. He’s relentlessly curious, willing to pursue any cockamamie theory that intrigues him. These...
My Thoughts on the Book White Fragility
Who remembers the first time they understood some people were a different race than you? I was in 4th grade. I liked a boy named Danny, and he...
Type So Hard You Bruise the Screen
In the late 1950s, Jack Kerouac typed out a list of thirty points describing his writing practice in a piece titled “Belief and Technique for Modern...
Jam Session: 2020 NYE with the Cornelius Eady Trio
Cornelius Eady offered this wonderful piece to RIFF just before Thanksgiving. Happily, we share it now as we look back and also forward. Many of us...
The Ineffability of a Hug
BEHIND THE SCENES: SETTING: This morning, 6:30. Jan is sitting at her computer. Steve walks in with a cup of coffee. STEVE: Are you going to...










