Michael Davis' site dedicated to writing, travel, and commentary.
If you’re a writer, you’ll live your life not knowing if you’re any good. And you’ll die not knowing. I think John Berryman said that. After Phil Levine published his first book of poems, people said, yeah, but can you do it again? Then he did it again. Then they said, yeah, but have... Continue Reading →
air and light and time and space "–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something has always been in the way but now I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this place, a large studio, you should see the space and the light. for the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and the time to... Continue Reading →
I've written three books of fiction to date, all story collections; though, only one of them has been published.* This is not remarkable or typical in any sense, even if I do have the stereotypical writer's voice in my head telling me that I should be submitting to more book contests, etc. My submission schedule... Continue Reading →
Set a word count goal. My minimum goal is 7 pages per week, which comes to about 2450 words. Give yourself permission to write poorly. You are the worst judge of your own writing, especially in a first draft. You need to get around your hangups if you want to be productive. The only way... Continue Reading →
I once took a creative writing workshop from Richard Ford, in which he spent a lot of energy inveighing against the epiphany in short fiction. This must have been in 1997 or 1998. Little did any of us suspect at the time that his vehemence was probably a reaction to a single bad review that... Continue Reading →
It was the beginning of a time when it was almost as if the novel itself didn't matter anymore. Publishing a shiny booklike object was simply an excuse for parties and glamour and goodlooking authors reading finely honed minimalism to students who would listen rapt with slackjawed admiration, thinking, I could do that, I could... Continue Reading →
Cunning is what counts in this life, and even that you've got to use in the slyest way you can; I'm telling you straight: they're cunning, and I'm cunning. If only "them" and "us" had the same ideas we'd get on like a house on fire, but they don't see eye to eye with us,... Continue Reading →
1. Veritas vos Liberabit Karl Lessing and I decided to finish the five gallon jugs of flat Michelob his little brother had liberated from a frat party. It felt like a big decision. This was 1993. We were sitting in Karl's parents' garage, watching old footage of Tower of Power's “What is Hip?” on Soul... Continue Reading →
I was sitting in a cafe across the street from Rundetaarn, a Masonic dragon tower in Copenhagen, trying to make progress with William Gibson’s novel, The Peripheral, when I realized it’s constipated with words and it wasn't going to get any more regular after 100 pages. It’s so self-referential, so overwrought and self-conscious that it broke... Continue Reading →
The Writing Expedition 