“Fly fishing,” Wikipedia tells us, “is an angling method in which an artificial ‘fly’ is used to catch fish.” To catch fish so that s/he can then release them, the fly fisher(wo)man must make something artificial—feathers, fur, thread, a barbless hook—appear Real, a skill that involves getting things Right: the cast, the presentation, the fly…

“This could be one of the last good days of summer.” My husband and I start saying this in early August. Never mind that in Milwaukee, where we live, summer often stretches all the way through September. The sentence is code for: “Drop everything, let’s get out on the lake.” Another code phrase is, “Flat…

I was standing at a stoplight with a few MFA students after my fiction workshop let out, making small talk about how we were each planning to spend our Thursday evening. A group of them were getting ready to grab a quick bite at the student center before driving half an hour to hear our…

When I was five years old, I begged my parents to let me take piano lessons. No one else in the family was interested in the massive, old upright piano sitting in our living room. A converted player piano, I may have been as interested in the piano at that time—with its doors above the…

Josh Barkan at the peak of Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, in Morocco The writing life is one of paradox: We spend most of our time alone, but we need to connect with others to be able to write, to have a subject matter. I travel, perhaps, because it gives me a way…

Years ago, in the first apartment I rented by myself with no housemates, I killed all of my plants. It’s true. People who know me now find this hard to believe. And I must admit, it’s getting harder for me to believe it too. I don’t know that person as well as I used to.…

A recent meal I made for my wife: roasted chicken with wheat beer and orange gravy, molasses and orange-glazed carrots, and roasted brussels sprouts with red chile. + Remembering my earliest attempts at cooking, like remembering my earliest stories, makes me wince. A bad piece of writing can be revised, but only so much can…

Rugsy I like words. I like the way they roll around in my mouth like hard candy. I like to suck on them till they become part of me and trickle out through my fingers onto the page. I love words so much I want to sleep with them, marry them, love them forever, and…

The Crablike Spiny Orb Weaver To clear any immediate confusion, yes I grew up in Wisconsin and encountered The Mosquito. Yes I saw bugs; yes they stung and bit me, but never once in my childhood memory did I encounter a human who studied or admired insects. In my twenties, a black beetle, as big…

For most of my creative life I have identified as a writer, and the bulk of my public “success” has been in the world of words. But, forever, I have been diligently (if haphazardly) making paintings and (with much more fear) trying to find my way into making music. My tastes as a reader/viewer/listener are…