Dedication
Five Points
A for no-particular-reason decision: To take a lunch break.
Author: dcgws
French Accent Marks: A Beginner Offers a Primer
French Accent Marks: A Beginner Offers a Primer
Frenchly
For me, an American with a unique lack of talent for learning languages, the five French accent marks (also referred to as the diacritics) can be confusing.
The Morrison Triplets
The Morrison Triplets
Harvard Review
Victoria, darling. I have to tell you, I began a letter to you not long after I arrived but then ripped it up this morning and am starting all over.
Breaking Bread
Beacon Press (2022)
What’s on our plates relates to what’s off: grief, pleasure, love, race, and class. In Breaking Bread, nearly 70 renowned New England writers gather round the table to talk food, family, and community.
“These intimate reflections hit the spot.“
— Publisher’s Weekly
“Food writing doesn’t get much more inspirational than [Breaking Bread].”
— Portland Press Herald
Beacon Press (2022)
What’s on our plates relates to what’s off: grief, pleasure, love, race, and class. In Breaking Bread, nearly 70 renowned New England writers gather round the table to talk food, family, and community.
Here, you’ll find Lily King’s memories of a tweaked chocolate chip cookie recipe, Richard Russo on the Italian soup his mother once snubbed, and Jennifer Finney Boylan on her family’s pizza baking tradition. Susan Minot writes about the non-food food of her youth, and Richard Ford about why food doesn’t much interest him. Nancy Harmon Jenkins talks scallops, and Sandy Oliver the pleasures of being a locavore. Others address a beloved childhood food from Iran, the horror of starving in a prison camp, the urge to bake pot brownies for a sick friend, and the delight of buying a prized chocolate egg for a child.
PRAISE
Publisher’s Weekly
“These intimate reflections hit the spot.”
Portland Press Herald
“Food writing doesn’t get much more inspirational than [Breaking Bread].”
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments
Leon Literary Review
This was his city, but DP had only so many ways through it. He’d taken one path this morning—from his apartment building to Preble Street.
February 2021
Debra Spark is co-editing an anthology of essays about food by Maine writers with Castine-based writer Deborah Joy Corey. Contributors to include Rick Russo, Kate Russo, Arielle Greenberg, Jane Brox, Phuc Tran, Lee Smith, Roxanna Robinson, Kate Christensen, and many others. Proceeds are to go to the hunger nonprofit Blue Angel, which Corey founded. Stay tuned for updates.
And Then Something Happened
Engine Books (2020)
Debra Spark’s Curious Attractions remains a hugely popular fiction writing guide thirteen years after its publication. Now, Spark tackles the thorniest aspects of literary fiction craft: plot, humor, research, scope, and more. In And Then Something Happened, Spark brings her widely-loved wisdom, wit, and care to these nuanced essays, full of examples, anecdotes, and analysis of your favorite writers’ approaches to crafting stories and novels, plus a moving essay about the danger many of us face as we face the blank page.
Engine Books (2020)
Debra Spark’s Curious Attractions remains a hugely popular fiction writing guide thirteen years after its publication. Now, Spark tackles the thorniest aspects of literary fiction craft: plot, humor, research, scope, and more. In And Then Something Happened, Spark brings her widely-loved wisdom, wit, and care to these nuanced essays, full of examples, anecdotes, and analysis of your favorite writers’ approaches to crafting stories and novels, plus a moving essay about the danger many of us face as we face the blank page.
Writing in a Time of Disaster
Writing in a Time of Disaster
The Writer’s Chronicle
Trouble, as we all know, forces a reordering of priorities, in a rather unhappy way. So long, petty concerns!
Frozen
Frozen
Decor Maine
I fell into writing about homes a decade ago. Not because of any special knowledge, but because a Maine shelter magazine took a flyer on me.
46: A Journal
46: A Journal
Narrative Magazine
Here’s what I forgot this week: The name of one of my favorite students, the name of that Carol Shields book I love, the name of that Willa Cather novel I love, the details of a story I read, just two days after I read it. This last failure was a real problem; I forgot the details while I was meeting with the student-author to discuss the story.