Gimbling in the Wabe | The Words I Have Etched on My Body
In 2012, LitStack Editor-in-Chief Tee Tate asked me if I would be interested in writing a weekly feature for the...
Gimbling in the Wabe
Why Do People Read Bad Books?
Recently I've been reading What Makes This Book So Great, by Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Jo Walton. In...
Of Words and Dogs and Little Fishes*
I feel so blessed that I can "work" from home as a book reviewer, essayist and occasionally as a literary...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Inspiration in Transitions
Today at the dog park, one of the topics discussed by us "8:30 regulars" included high school graduations. It is,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Too Many Books
This week, I'm reposting one of my very favorite Gimblings - a little poem I wrote a few years ago...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Seeing the Story
In the first telling of the tale, I don't pick up the book at all. It is a very short...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Gimbling into the Sunset
Back in November 2012, I wrote my very first Gimbling in the Wabe. It was the brainchild of LitStack's Editor-in-Chief,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – What I Want for Mother’s Day
I was watching television the other day when an ad came on informing me that for this Mother's Day, "smart...
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Beautiful Addiction
Hi, my name is Sharon. I'm a library request addict. It used to be I would only request a few...
Gimbling in the Wabe – “The Journey” by Mary Oliver
For the final Gimbling in the Wabe of this year's National Poetry Month, I am highlighting a poet who, to...
Gimbling in the Wabe – “Renascence” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was already a published poet in her teen years, but it was at age nineteen when...
Gimbling in the Wabe – “Home” by Warsan Shire
Poet and activist Warsan Shire April is National Poetry Month, and in honor of that I am stepping a bit...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Allowables by Nikki Giovanni
It's April, which has been declared National Poetry Month; a celebration of poetry created in 1996 by the Academy of...
Gimbling in the Wabe: “What our Orgasm Type says About our Personality” (and other cheap ways to get attention)
Wait....what? Did I just read what I just read? An "article" in my Facebook feed that was titled "What our...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Be Nice to Josie Day 2017
Monday is "Be Nice to Josie Day." For me, it's not the first day of Spring, or the 20th of...
Gimbling in the Wabe – It’s On Us
Poor Emma Watson! She shows some skin in a fashion photo shoot - yes, decidedly evocative skin- and suddenly she's...
Gimbling in the Wabe – On Paul Virilio, Integral Accidents, the Internet, the Olympics, Doctor Who, Feral Kittens and Not Going to Sea Without a Life Jacket
Recently, I read Elan Mastai's novel All Our Wrong Todays, and in it he referenced cultural theorist Paul Virilio, who...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Say It Ain’t So
With all that's happening in the world today, with everything that deserves attention and activism, this diatribe of mine may...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Something New Every Second
The other day I was reading Michael Gibney's Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line, an engaging look at a...
Gimbling in the Wabe – For Our Grape Vines, Now Gone
I've been grappling with some big ideas lately, hoping to use them in this week's Gimbling in the Wabe, but...
Gimbling in the Wabe – From Point A to Point B
I've never been good at drawing connections between things. I'm perfectly fine with Point A and Point B being distinct...
Gimbling in the Wabe – The Importance of the Nonsensical
It's been a rough week and I've been at a loss on what to write, so I decided to look...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Planting Flowers
This translated political cartoon by Spanish artist JM Nieto simply resonates with me. It originally appeared on January 1...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Twelfth Night
Christmas for me always ends on January 5. We leave our holiday lights on through the night of the 5th,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Favorite Books of 2016
The "Best Books of 2016"? Pul-eeze. Unless one has a universally agreed-upon metric that can be applied to every single...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Why the Bells Chimed
My father was a minister, and for many years, a highlight for me was the Christmas Eve services he held...
Gimbling in the Wabe – The Gift of Reading
I tend to be one of those people who obsesses over gift giving. I don't get a chance to do...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Tis the Season (for me to give suggestions for the science fiction and fantasy readers on your gift list)
It's that time of year again, when thoughts turn towards warm and cozy, hearth and home, and the giving of...
Gimbling in the Wabe – About this Safety Pin Thing…
Recently I read an article where a man, who probably thought he was well meaning, attacked those who have started...
Gimbling in the Wabe – The Tigers in This Picture
A Rant About Clickbait of All Shapes and Sizes on Facebook (and Other Social Media Platforms) * ~ * ~...
Gimbling in the Wabe – You Have to Hear It to Believe It
I don't normally do this for my Gimblings - linking to a site rather than writing my own essay. But...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Making Sausage
In last week's 2nd Annual NerdCon: Stories convention, held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, I attended a panel discussion entitled...
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Own Wanderings Through M. T. Anderson’s “Symphony for the City of the Dead” (Pt 2)
... in which I jump right in from where I left off in my first installment of my thoughts on...
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Own Wanderings Through M. T. Anderson’s “Symphony for the City of the Dead”
NOTE: This is written as if it were being told to an acquaintance, say, someone that I saw regularly at...
Gimbling in the Wabe – It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Gene Luen Yang!
Okay, I have to admit, I find last week's announcement of the 2016 MacArthur Fellows (and their subsequent awarding of...
Gimbling in the Wabe – RIP, W. P. Kinsella
On Saturday, September 17, 2016, Canadian author W.P. (Bill) Kinsella died at age 81. The news didn't make a lot...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Wherein I Rant about Manipulative Advertising
Words are amazing. They give voice to the essence of being human, they are how we share who we are,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Glorious Failures
My daughter was looking over the syllabus from a college English class that she had just started, and she was...
Gimbling in the Wabe – A Story Unto Themselves
Over the last few years I've been writing the "Literary Birthday" blurbs that appear Monday through Friday on the LitStack...
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Own Genre of Postcards, My Own Genus of Photographs
"A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships." - Jorge Luis Borges...
Gimbling in the Wabe – What Michael Phelps and I Have in Common
Well, the honest answer to "what Michael Phelps and I have in common" is, practically nothing. He's a young, strong,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Persistence
On summer nights - well, on many nights, really - I end the day out on my front porch, in...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Sometimes When I Read…
Sometimes when I read, it's like a lovely summer's day when the sun is shining but it's not too hot,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – It’s Too Danged Hot!
Dang, it's hot. Too hot. I know you folks in Southern climates may well be guffawing at us Northerners now,...
Gimbling in the Wabe – What is a Writer?
(Due to this nasty thing known as a "deadline", this Gimbling in the Wabe is a repeat of one first...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Clarity
Today, I plugged new headphones into my iPod and entered nirvana. That may seem somewhat dramatic, but trust me, it's...
Gimbling in the Wabe – Everything is Going to Be Okay
Late last Sunday night, in the wake of the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, I held my...
Gimbling in the Wabe – An Interesting Little Experiment
Last week, I was trolling around on the internet (as I am wont to do), and I came across an...
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Thoughts on June Bugs
I hate June bugs. Yes, I realize "hate" is a powerful, laden word. I realize that it should not be...
