Christopher Barzak

Category: Personal

  • Back on the range

    Home again from spending five days in Seattle, where I saw eagles nearly every day (a good omen or portent, I’m told), rode a ferry out to Vashon Island, where I spoke with really awesome, smart high school students about writing, Japan, and my second book, gave a reading at University Bookstore, where I met…

  • Important things

    Drove north and east to visit Erie, PA today, where my writing pals Alan DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl were visiting Alan’s parents.  Had a great several hours to talk and catch up with them before having to head back home (and them having to catch a flight back to Minnesota).  But on the way home,…

  • Dear Reader

    There are so many reasons for writing.  For me, I take pleasure in design for the sake of design.  The perfect melding–or even if not perfect, the interesting melding–of various materials into a shape that catches the eye of the mind as the words flare during the process of interpretation and become fireworks, emotional surges,…

  • Looking up

    There is a bird in the tree outside my window, singing the same two notes over and over, and I’m beginning to see green appear in patches as the snow melts. On Twitter, I can practice Japanese in small bites, which keeps me fresh.  Letter writing, at this point, takes too much out of me. …

  • Thank you

    Still glowing with excitement to have had my book nominated for the Nebula Award this year, I’ve been thinking back to when I first started to be serious about writing.  I guess the nomination has put me into a bit of a mood to think about where I started as well as where I am…

  • An end, a beginning

    I’ve been coming up for air, over and over, for the past few weeks.  It’s been nice to sequester myself away from the rest of the world (okay, except for Facebook, which seems to be the only online social hangout that I will venture into these days, mainly because I don’t feel like it will…

  • When we are like Anne

    “Despite everything, I believe people are good at heart.” I’m so glad Anne Frank could believe this.  It’s a testament to her own goodness.  It is not a testament to human nature itself, though.  It tells us more about Anne than it does about ourselves. I don’t believe it.  I don’t attribute my disbelief to…

  • Squirrel war looms on the horizon

    (AP) Several squirrels are barking at each other outside my upstairs window like military personnel.  If any of them turns out to be the jerk who was living in my attic a year and a half ago or so, and if he’s planning to launch a new attack, there will be war. Just sayin’.

  • Being Ill

    I hate being ill.  When I am, my body feels like a foreign country.  A foreign country that’s been taken over by a hostile imperial army.  My head feels like my feet, as if I use it to move myself around from place to place.  I sigh a lot, and linger on bad memories.  I…

  • Summer Stock

    It is now August, and I’m at the tail end of what has been a very busy summer.  I managed to move forward a bit with the novel, wrote two short stories, and an essay, and also took two classes toward my MFA degree and will be taking a third one beginning at the end…