After the Charleston tragedy, I posted this on Facebook: “No words for what happened in Charleston. Just no words...stunning...” I was right in one sense. It was stunning. I wrong about the other part. There are words. There must be words. In Charleston Shooting: Speaking the Unspeakable, Thinking the Unthinkable, Charles P. Pierce challenges us …
Why I Write
Why do I write? Popular wisdom says to “start with the end in mind.” So often, I write without much of an end in mind at all. I start from where I am, the movement of forces inside me, and work out from there. Usually, it begins with a scan of attention across my inner …
Time To Get On With It
I've read several times not to blog about your blogging. Cardinal sin, that, mostly because people want to know how to do things: how to achieve bliss, how to find happiness, how to discover God or orgasms or the next big thing, each of them in five easy steps (or less). And a …
On Living Longer Than Dad
I have now lived ten days longer than my father. As we flew to Hawaii on Friday, April 12, I was thoughtful of another date: July 23, 1988, was Jimmy Joe Berryman’s 19,707th day, and his last. April 12, 2013 was Jeffrey William Berryman’s 19,707th day. All that day, I reflected on the fact …
Writing: Getting to It
Inauguration day, as a moment of beginning and continuation, strikes me as a fine day to begin writing again. So here we go. After a great Christmas in New York, where I got to hang out with my NYC gang—namely, Amy Berryman and Daniel and Grace Berryman (my amazing kids), not to mention my lovely …
JEFF BERRYMAN 