Design Cues

Teaching, and Now, Retirement*

On May 31, I resigned my faculty position teaching English at a small high school. The school solely served at-risk students who had been removed from the home for various reasons; most of them had gotten in trouble with the law, but all of them came from extremely dysfunctional families. As, probably, do a great […]

Finalist in Narrative’s 2013 Spring Contest

“Lantern, Name Thy Bearer”, an excerpt from a long story I’ve been working on, was selected as a finalist in Narrative Magazine’s 2013 Spring Contest. Here’s a list of the finalists, a group in which I’m proud to be found: Jerad Alexander On Our Next Stop in Modern War Robert Bausch Rescue Joe David Bellamy […]

His Tomb Is With Us To This Day

Once again, the fine folks @curatormagazine have posted one of my essays. I have a few more scheduled over the next several weeks, so I’ll keep you informed. http://www.curatormagazine.com/seth-wieck/his-tomb-is-with-us-to-this-day/ My nephew Jude was stillborn. The diagnosis came early in the pregnancy: an extra chromosome written into the genetic language would lead to, among other maladies, […]

You can write what you know. But you can also write to figure things out. It’s the difference between chasing butterflies and pinning them to a board. It loses something when you catch them. Josh Ritter in an interview with Tom Ashbrook on NPR’s On Point.

On the second day of a trek into the Sawtooth Wilderness, in Idaho, we were all invited to spend twenty-four hours by ourselves…very soon, although the day was bright and unthreatening, I was cowering in my tent. Apparently, all it took for me to become aware of the emptiness of life and the horror of […]

An excerpt from novel in progress.  Not sure if this will make it.