We’re back at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony this month. Read some other posts about Writing Retreats HERE and HERE. We began the residency by going through the copyedited manuscript of Generation Space: A Love Story. That sounds rather tedious, but we found it exciting. Not only did we get caught up as writing nerds in the minutia of comparing Chicago and NASA style, but we felt motivated, knowing … Continue reading 5 Things We Did at a Writing Residency
In 1986, we were in college. In January, Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after lift-off. On April 26, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered catastrophic failures. In July, Anna’s father died of cancer, probably caused by his work cleaning nuclear weapons during two years of requisite military service in the 1950s. In December, Anna traveled to the Soviet Union on a three-week study abroad course; because of … Continue reading Chernobyl: 30 Years Later
Today, would have been college friend Madhavi Samala’s 52nd birthday. Madhavi died almost three years ago, having been diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer before most of us are supposed to have our first colonoscopy. Today, we re-post 5 Lofty Ambitions posts remembering friends and family and writing about cancer. Cancer, Risk, & Otherwise Who gets cancer? Who gets which cancer? What are the odds? … Continue reading Cancer: 5 Posts of Remembrance
It’s Nobel Prize week, and Wednesday’s announcement of this year’s award in Physics says, “The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 recognises Takaaki Kajita in Japan andArthur B. McDonald in Canada, for their key contributions to the experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass. The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our … Continue reading 5 Physicists with Birthdays This Week
What It Is: the formless thing which gives things form (2008) By Lynda Barry Lynda Barry’s What It Is is a book like none other we’ve seen. It’s part stories, part memoir about her life, and part creativity workbook for the reader. It’s nonlinear; it poses questions; it’s fun. One of our favorite bits of wisdom: To be able to stand not knowing long enough … Continue reading 5 Graphic (Nonfiction) Books
Longtime readers of Lofty Ambitions know what tremendous fans we are of the seemingly random connections of things that push their way into our lives to give us delight in the form of serendipity Over the weekend, we were co-editing a piece of writing that mentioned our parents’ exposure to duck-and-cover drills as schoolchildren. This prompted a question of when that famous film that featured … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War (sort of, with serendipity)
Earlier this summer, we posted about seeing the film Jaws for its nationwide 40th-anniversary screening. One of the most memorable scenes in that film is when the three main characters—Brody, Hooper, and Quint—are sitting around on the boat drinking. Quint, the weathered captain, talks of his experience years earlier aboard the USS Indianapolis. He says: We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War: Jaws and the Atomic Bomb
Two weeks ago, we wrote about the 70th anniversary of the Trinity test. This was the first detonation of an atomic bomb. Being writers and lovers of words, we are following up by examining more closely the language and literature that surrounded the Trinity test and the birth of the atomic age. Here, we also take a look at some of the other intriguing facts, occurrences, and … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War: The Language of Trinity
Seventy years ago, at a site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, a new era in human history was birthed into existence. At approximately 5:30 a.m. Mountain War Time (MWT) on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated. In the pre-dawn hours of that long-ago July morning, a rainstorm passed through the area of the impending test. Thunder and lightning filled the skies, and members … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War: Trinity
Within 4 months we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city. These words began a memo that was drafted by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and presented on April 25, 1945, to President Truman. Truman had been president less than two weeks, and, with the help of General … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War: June 1945
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