June 25, 2026
When I looked out back the last several mornings, at rabbit was grazing near the fence. Today I saw my fat groundhog and a feral cat (very spotted– an Appaloosa cat?) hanging out together. Fat boy did his best to get under the tool shed. Cat declined to follow, hid at the back. My protestations that I meant no harm went unheeded.
Errands. Big box to Goodwill. Weeding, dead-heading, bamboo severance
La Follia on repeat.
June 24, 2026
In email this morning:
Maddie Caldwell <mcaldwell@penguinrandomshouse.com>
Jun 23, 2026, 7:39 PM (15 hours ago)
to me
I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Maddie Caldwell, and I am an Executive Editor at Random House Books.
I recently came across your book, The One with the Beautiful Necklaces, and wanted to reach out personally. I was genuinely impressed by its mythic depth, lyrical style, and the way you bring the Appalachian setting and generational story to life.
I would be interested in learning more about your current writing projects and future plans, as well as whether you are currently represented by a literary agent.
If you do have representation, I would be happy to connect through your agent. If not, I would be pleased to share more about our publishing process and explore whether there may be a fit for future collaboration.
If you are open to a discussion, I would be glad to hear from you at your convenience.
Warm regards,
Maddie Caldwell
Executive Editor
Random House Books
After preparing and sending a thirty page enthusiastic response, determining that Ms Caldwell is real person, I allowed myself to realize how odd and unlike-the-universe it all was. I researched, sent another response, and received this in return:
Thank you for reaching out. We can confirm that what you've encountered is a scam. Mcaldwell@penguinrandomshouse.com is not a legitimate email address associated with our company or any of our employees.
I do recognize how hilarious this is to someone watching from outside. I don’t understand who profits from it and how, unless it is simply the glee of inflicting hurt. Congratulations– I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
June 21, 2026
Solstice. Radiant beauty. Flowers in my garden like glowing coals. The day has been luxurious, ample, rolling out hour by hour like a golden cloth. For me, every day could be the summer solstice.
Weeding
Concert yesterday afternoon– if you can tell from the comments– a crowd-pleaser. People asked for copies of my poem, or said, “Who wrote that poem? I was trying to follow along, but it wasn’t familiar. . .” My obscurity is a judgment on the universe. Our director flubbed an entrance in the otherwise perfect Schubert. A conductor’s imperious “watch me!” should be wedded to expertise. Robert Shaw did wonderful things for choral music, but some of his practices, which can best be described as tics, became, somehow, honored standards. Not his fault, but that of his sycophants.
Mrs towhee flew to my very toe-tip to take a crap. Offering or contempt?
June 20, 2026
Stabs of red and black and golden calla out of the pervading green. Great mullein towering over. Last night’s concert was not “good” in the sense I usually use that word, but it was good fun, and our audience was delighted. My marriage poem was an unexpected hit. I was in the worse voice of recent times, and croaked my way through anything above the bass G. MS had to carry the part. Less pained and exhausted than in times past. Was it something as elementary as new shoes? One more time for that. On the health scene– I limped through Poland and Germany with a tender foot, and have been careful since. Today I realized it was not the End of Things but a plantar’s wart, and I got the instrument I bought long ago for the task and shaved off the top of the wart. So far, painless for the first time in months. My default setting is the belief that afflictions come without anything being able to be done about them, and then pass, magically, without anything having been done. That’s not wrong, but it’s right only about 60% of the time.
Obsessive playing of Handel’s “As Steals the Morn.”
June 19, 2026
Sweet cool breathy day. Last night was quite terrible, me wandering down the paths of fury and rebellion. Those paths are righteous paths, even when futile. That’s a way to wake exhausted.
Another way to wake exhausted is to have a dress rehearsal as bad as ours was. Of course everything goes awry at such a time, one expects it, but the flat fact is that we don’t know the music well enough to present it to an audience. Whole elements will not be seen or heard until first performance tonight, and we typically wait till dress rehearsal to address vital elements of performance and interpretation. Until this point we are drilled about fish mouth and final consonants to the exclusion of all else. Do I forget my fury from performance to performance, or am I just too habituated to go do something else? It’s not that we don’t have fun– we do. But we’re just not very good.
Bears in the news for greater and greater boldness. WJ had the windows torn out of his garage door.
June 18, 2026
My rictus of revision continues, a great slaughter of adverbs and helping verbs, by thousands of words reduced. My initial preference for the construction, “was working” over “worked” needs to be examined. I think I want to prolong action rather than freeze it in the minute, but that’s good only for one sentence in fifty. Like a poet, I pay attention to the music of a line. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it must be corrected. Also, the odd conviction that everything must be attributed to somebody in the story. I have to take out, “Sam saw Rhys walking out of the near woods” and replace it with “Rhys walked out of the near woods” about 100 times. But I finished, and wept as I was finishing.
June 17, 2026
Woke at 4 to complete prep for the colonoscopy. Reasonably sure that will never happen again. L a prince driving me and then waiting for the procedure to happen. Personnel at the clinic friendly and light-hearted, joking with each other in the corridor. Groggy– from the anesthesia? From the fuss and tedium of it all?
June 16, 2026
Fast for the idiot colonoscopy. I wouldn’t have eaten yet at this hour on any other day, but the idea that I CAN’T is provoking. I make too much of every interruption in my routine. I am not one who takes things in stride.
Miserable with cold last night. Getting up and retrieving the comforter seemed beyond my abilities, somehow.
June 14, 2026
Timothy Liberty was first presented in April, 1986. I’ve been writing plays for 40 years. Plus. One feels perpetually a journeyman.
June 12, 2026
Diana Wortham died five days before she accepted my Facebook Friend request.
Stephen says this of How to Spend Your Father’s Birthday:
SM: 7:44 PM (55 minutes ago: to me
I'm in awe. I don't know how else to phrase it, your work has always been incredible but now that I have a bit more lived experience - some of these words cut sharp.
Can you download WhatsApp? It's the messaging system we use here / it's so much easier. If you have it, my number is +353838638100
A Christmas Poem - beyond words. If you can make me feel like that (I'm normally an emotionless android). That one really hit home for me.
Still making my way through them. Each one needs breath so I'm taking my time
Supper with DJ at Vinnie’s. Huge mastiff slobbering on the terrace. We talked about the strange politics of the church, the factions each largely mysterious to the other. Wheels within wheels. Something is wrong with the rebuilding process that is not fully addressed by the sentence, “It takes time.”
June 11, 2026
Woke stomach-ill, wondered why. Walked into the kitchen and realized that, while drunk, I’d drunk half a bottle of blue-cheese dressing.
Infuriating rehearsal. Our director will lose count and fail to make an entrance in order to make fish mouth. For any arts director, the thing you correct most is the thing you’re wrong about. Never a better illustration.
Picked up the book of 17th century writings I bought in Waynesville. Went through, with surprise and delight, Bacon and Jonson. I was supposed to have read them long ago, but probably did not.
My back door stood wide open when I returned from rehearsal. I left it open, creeping through the house, so if an animal got in it would have an exit. Seems to have been no intruder.
June 9, 2026
Planning meeting here last night, me berserk with impatience at things which really needed to be taken care of. I’m not a detail oriented person. I have flashes of insight which are often useful, but the bean-counting nit-picking long haul leaves me shrieking. People at UNCA gave me shade for never doing administrative work. I thought to myself, “you don’t want that.”
Devil’s pokers in bloom.
The catbirds are, unexpectedly, the bullies of the garden. They chase the bluejays away from the peanut bowl and then don’t eat them themselves.
June 8, 2026
I believe I’ve finished the sweeping revision of Brothers Mountain. Seven thousand words cut, though what excites me is all the matter added and clarified. Articles and helping verbs fell like chaff in a thresher.
Filled out a medical form for my upcoming colonoscopy. Most of it is fudged terribly, as I had no idea what the answer to some of the questions were, and typed in just what would allow me to go on and get the thing finished.
June 5, 2026
Waterlilies in bloom, having taken the ravages of the bears in stride.
Evening primrose in bloom.
Giant calla in bloom.
Outstanding progress on the novel.
Reptile day at 51 Lakeshore. I sat on the front porch drinking tea and watching a five lined skink patrol the bricks. I asked him to crawl across my naked foot, and a few seconds later he actually did, letting the side of his foot touch the side of my toe. While watering, I stirred up something in the 4 o’clock patch. It was a copperhead. The instant spearhead of panic in my chest at the sight of her was totally unexpected. Almost immediately came the apprehension of her extreme, cool, antique beauty. I considered that I have live 75 years without having been bitten by a snake, except for those I was holding, and since it’s unlikely that I’ll ever pick up a copperhead, I should consider myself safe. In any case killing her was out of the question. If she decides to relocate on her own I wouldn’t object.
June 4, 2026
Day of crystalline loveliness. Took my neglected car to be washed. I watched the boys who work at the car wash, thinking how incredibly young it is possible to be.
Despaired of the lupine seeds I’d planted, but when I went to re-till the area, there were seedlings hiding under the morning glory sprouts, so I weeded to give them a chance. Bought mature lupine and foxglove to fill in the spaces. The employees at the nursery were dressed as bees and butterflies.
Random memory of my mother darning socks. The darning egg lay in her sewing bocks for decades. I wonder where it is now.
June 2, 2026
I must record the odd truth that revising my book makes me stupid with joy.
But, tragedy at my alma mater: As part of this effort, the College has made the decision to eliminate several programs, including eight majors (Biochemistry, Creative Writing, eSports and Gaming Administration, International Studies, Neuroscience, Physics, Public Health, and Social Science) and four minors (French, Spanish, Physics, and Medieval Studies). These decisions were guided by factors including student demand, enrollment trends, and long-term sustainability. As a result of these program changes, six faculty positions have been eliminated. The question I would ask is, how many administrative positions have been eliminated. I expect the answer will be “none.”
Torrential rain began the second I got the trash bins off the street and got back inside.
June 1, 2026
Parents’ wedding, 1947
Unaccustomed outpouring of personal regard, which I record as one records the appearance of a strange species of bird. K writes: You are one of the best people I know. You have a big heart. Grateful for you. I checked the message twice to be sure it was meant for me. I assumed a certain measure of antipathy (reasons unknown) between us.
Stephen writes, after our bout of poetry critique:
I'm well aware I'm a novice but I really enjoyed our conversation over the last few days. Your insight and my ignorance, set a challenge for a me. To work on my scribblings and thoughts - fuelled by a deadline that passed nearly two hours ago. I feel like I undertook a masterclass with you in the best possible way. In a few days, I learnt a lot from your feedback - that kind of critique is what shapes your outlook and approach - it rightly makes you question your gut. A natural perspective is not always right (without the appropriate training to trust that perspective) and it was bit pretentious of me to think my gut would be that, without having the work done to back it up and trust that I trained my instinct, which I haven't. It's just raw.
I look forward to studying the classics and the contemporary. To have an expert evaluate my words like you did, means an awful lot and I appreciate it.
I would have loved to have heard some of your lectures at North Carolina University. I wonder were you serious or funny? I've only ever known you to be warm, reciting quotes when you want to be punny.
You've set out a path for me - to read, learn and consume as much as I can to train my instinct - that is invaluable and I look forward to it. Thank you.
He sent me the song he wrote as Ireland’s entry to Euro vison, to which I’ll listen when I am awake enough. He composes under the name Stephen Oliver Markham
Can’t believe I began a rewrite of The One with the Beautiful Necklaces. Its publication is surely obscure enough not to make a difference.
May 31, 2026
My white swamp hibiscus was cut down. Security cameras, creepily, do not reveal the culprit. I was taking pride in that plant’s future.
J’s birthday– he who made me an uncle.
The concert I tried to hear yesterday actually happened today, a vesper service at Trinity, featuring mostly the music of Bach. Quite nice. On both evenings, downtown was enfolded by the perfume of basswood trees, my favorite scent of all. I always park at distance, to give myself exercise, and the speed of my return to the car this evening made me hopeful for my stamina.
