May We Write Like Ben (or Jerry)

Those Picassos of Pistachio Pistachio, those Borgeses of Half Baked, Ben and Jerry have authored an oeuvre of delicious genius, and a young writer would do well to learn the lessons of the ice cream iconoclasts, who did to dessert what only the most innovative artists do to their crafts: they reinvented it.

If we’re going to write vanilla, let’s write a vanilla so ridiculously good that it isn’t even vanilla anymore, but something more than anyone thought vanilla could be. And let’s not stop there. Let’s write chocolate, too. Let’s mix those. Let’s stick candy in that mix, candy we write ourselves.

by Robert Uren

On Dust and the Cellular Self

Never mind rivers. You can’t take steps in the same body twice. May I find my way into this subject by way of something gross? I’m typing on a laptop that isn’t very old, but is thoroughly coated in me. My skin and hair, that is. I’m literally losing myself while writing this; tiny bits of my fingertips and face shed into the crevices between these keys, and I’m already physically other than I was when I began typing. And readers, we know, become physically embedded in their reading spaces, as well, and even give some of themselves to the objects they read. Whether on page or screen, that dust is us.

Workshoppedified!

by Robert Uren

by Robert Uren

Workshoppedified!

by Robert Uren