I arrived on a Monday with a clear and detailed plan. We travelled to Assisi on Tuesday and by Wednesday I had already betrayed that plan. I chose, instead, to let the extraordinary saints and demons that populate the region’s churches in frescos and ex votos dictate...
On Italian time, the work of the imagination feels slower and more contemplative. My mind became chameleon-like in the best possible way at Civitella. Writing is a solitary act, but over six weeks, it felt like I was continually in conversation with everything around...
Not much writing got done those first few days–there was the jet lag, which messed with my sleeping, but also the feeling of being in a constant dream-state. I now lived in a castle! I walked the halls at night in slippers, automatic lights noiselessly...
Excerpt from A Passage North (2021) The present, we assume, is eternally before us, one of the few things in life from which we cannot be parted. It overwhelms us in the painful first moments of entry into the world, when it is still too new to be managed or...
