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Sea Glass

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Photo by David Schneider

A few years ago my family purchased an antique apothecary jar. It’s lovely, tall and delicate with a curving shape, the type of jar once used to store cotton balls or candy. We display it on a high shelf and fill it with beach glass.

There are two beaches near us where locals go to hunt for glass. The first, closest to our house, is the best. It’s rocky and not suitable for sun bathing, but walk there at low tide and you are likely to find fistfuls of sea glass, in colors ranging from brown to green to the coveted and rare blue.

At first, that’s where we went. My husband and I would stroll there after dinner and fill our pockets, or the kids would walk with friends and return to spread their plunder on the table, proudly showing off their haul. And little by little the apothecary jar, which one seemed so enormous, began to fill up. The more glass it contained, the more striking it appeared, the more I couldn’t wait to see what it would look like when it was full.

And then last summer, I was admiring the jar, the way the light played off the colors within and turned them into rich jewels, when it hit me. The layers of glass represented more than just a decoration. They stood for time with my family, for summers that were quickly passing by, for time that wouldn’t come again. Why was I rushing to fill it?

The realization hit just when, due to a myriad of reasons, I was struggling to find happiness in my writing and elsewhere. I was trying to force the outcomes I wanted, slogging through with my head down, sad and missing the beauty around me. [Read more…]

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Sarah’s Simple Pleasures: Coronavirus Edition

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While I am not scheduled to post a column this month, how could I not in light of a global pandemic? It is now when we are grasping for simple pleasures most of all. At this very hour, my husband (Doc B) is at the hospital attending to patients. He’s been doing so 24/7 since the coronavirus hit our nation. As an immunocompromised individual, I am under strict lock-down. Self-isolation by way of a matrimonial physician. But I couldn’t just sit here at my desk while he’s out helping people. So, … [Read more...]

Thirty-Six Authors Tell It Like It Is: The Highs, Lows, and Surprises of Being a Debut Author

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Special Note:  The piece below was written before COVID-19 began to affect our lives as it now has. I wrote it, sent it off to WU, and turned to other tasks. However, as my fellow debut authors began to post about the cancellation of their launch events—and as the online community began to respond—it became clear to me that I had to write an introduction in light of the unique situation that debut authors (like me) are facing this spring. In fact, we debs seem to have gone through the classic … [Read more...]

A Tale for Our Times

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It’s been a crazy season in what increasingly seems a world turning mad. Here in Australia we’ve had fire, we’ve had flood, and now we have pestilence in the form of the COVID 19 virus, which has caused extremely varied responses in different parts of the world, from the rapid, drastic and effective (China) to the inappropriate-verging-on-ludicrous (Australian shoppers fighting in the supermarket aisles over supplies of toilet paper.) Underlying all is the looming threat posed by climate change … [Read more...]

Writing When You’re Not Writing

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This month for Fiction Therapy, I answer a question from a member of the WU community, Al Rutgers. Al is 63 years old and has been writing in starts and stops for 15 years. He says: I’ve studied the craft of writing by taking some university writing courses, some online courses, and reading books and blogs about writing. My favourite way of studying writing is to write, in longhand, chapters of novels, stories or essays by writers I admire: John Steinbeck, Alice Munro, Joan Didion, Zadie … [Read more...]

They Just Won’t Understand

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Let me guess. Ideas distract you and scratch away at your attention so much that sometimes it’s tough to be present, really present, when you’re with other people. Maybe the scent or sizzle of burgers on the grill at the neighborhood BBQ takes you back to your childhood, to a story waiting there that you haven’t thought about in years. And suddenly you’re no longer there with your friends, but someplace else. Somewhere in your head. The people you’re with will notice this, of course, … [Read more...]

It Can’t Happen Here

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South Surrey, British Columbia, is by most estimates upscale.  While townhouse developments are spreading like weeds, single family homes are the norm.  They are not cheap.  They are large, with impossibly green lawns and fresh haircut landscaping.  There are winding streets and cul de sacs that do not invite through traffic.  Kids are driven to school in luxury cars.  Shopping centers have spas and the furniture for sale in home décor stores looks like it was built for a race of giants.  There … [Read more...]

I’m Not Above Spying, Part 2

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My first post on Writer Unboxed was eight years ago next month! In that post, I wrote about how I spy and snoop on people around me to get story ideas. Now, the long-awaited sequel. In Part 1, I gave the basics: How to successfully gather information from people and things around you, and the tools you need to do so (iPhone or recording device, paper and pen, etc.). In this post, I’ll make it even simpler. I’ll help you spy on yourself and your nearest and dearest. In short, all you need is … [Read more...]

Answers to Questions About Writing

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Because my life is completely entangled with writing—I’ve written three novels, hundreds of articles and essays, and I teach creative writing to kids—I get a lot of questions about writing from students, friends, friends of friends, third cousins of former neighbors, and strangers. So here are some of the questions I get asked most often and a few I’ve never been asked but wish I had (with answers to them all): How did you get your first novel published? Several key factors helped me get my … [Read more...]

Writing in the Time of Global Trauma

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A universal agreement seems to be that art often comes from conflict and emotional burdens. At the very least, the process of writing holds our imagination, and part of our imagination comes from the conflicts we’ve overcome and the sense we’ve made out of our world view. At this time, it’s hard for us writers to not be bombarded by information that is repeatedly illustrating themes of world devastation, climate change, political polarities, violence and xenophobia. The truth is that the … [Read more...]

Readings for Writers: Writing in Hope–and History

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In her essay “Three in a Bed: Fiction, Morals, and Politics,” Nadine Gordimer reflects on the role of the writer, a relevant reflection for us, especially now, at the beginning of a new year. Who hasn’t asked what is the purpose of my story? Why write? If you’ve never read Gordimer, you should know she took on a fight that wasn’t hers. She was white, Jewish, and South-African. She could have chosen a subject that circumvented controversy. Instead she wrote about apartheid without standing on … [Read more...]

A Light in the Darkness

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At the time I write this, Australia is burning. I'd planned to post on a different topic, but I can't get my mind off the fires that are eating up our forests, killing wildlife, domestic animals and humans, destroying farms and small towns and livelihoods, and filling the air with choking smoke, even in cities like Sydney and Canberra. This cataclysmic event dominates our media. There are the dramatic stories – evacuations in small boats through a thick smoke haze under a dark red sky; heroic … [Read more...]

A 2020 Vision

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Therese here. Please join me in welcoming 2019-guest-turned-2020-contributor, Barbara Probst! Barbara is no stranger to unboxed thinking. In 2008, she published a nonfiction book with Random House about out-of-the-box children called WHEN THE LABELS DON’T FIT. As a clinical social worker, she advocated for years for people who could not advocate for themselves. And this April, her debut novel will be published; QUEEN OF THE OWLS has already been named one of the most anticipated books of 2020 by … [Read more...]

The Worst-Case Scenario

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This past fall, I went backpacking for four days in the Canadian wilderness with a good friend.  It will be an adventure, I told myself as we planned the trip, when I read online about the “rugged,” “challenging,” “demanding” trail. It’s good to get outside your comfort zone. The trail included “steep climbs,” and “boulder hopping.” I’m tough; I can push myself. It didn’t occur to me to question whether pushing myself was a worthwhile goal; it was what I always did. What happened was that I … [Read more...]