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Dec 17, 2024 | 
themillions.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
I published a book of essays two months ago, which I realized only in retrospect is a collection of meditations on pain, and since then I have been parsing reader reactions in an anecdotal sort of way.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
themillions.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
We parked in a dusty lot off the hill city of Kastro, a village on the Greek island of Sifnos. We were there to see the Church of the Seven Martyrs, a little chapel sited on a spit of land in the middle of the Aegean. We wound our way down the cliffside along a stone path that led out onto the promontory, wind whipping our hair and clothes. For some reason I kept turning over in my mind the line from T. S.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
thebrunswicknews.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
Scrolling through Twitter one day very early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I saw a tweet that struck me as equal parts mirthless and true. "Things will be fine, eventually, in thousands of years, for rocks," quipped comedian Donni Saphire. It reminded me of a saying my mother used to trot out when I was growing up, whenever I got exercised by some trivial contretemps or other - bad hair day, missed party, hallway snub.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
thederrick.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
everand.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
Scrolling through Twitter one day very early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I saw a tweet that struck me as equal parts mirthless and true. “Things will be fine, eventually, in thousands of years, for rocks,” quipped comedian Donni Saphire. It reminded me of a saying my mother used to trot out when I was growing up, whenever I got exercised by some trivial contretemps or other — bad hair day, missed party, hallway snub.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
Scrolling through Twitter one day very early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I saw a tweet that struck me as equal parts mirthless and true. “Things will be fine, eventually, in thousands of years, for rocks,” quipped comedian Donni Saphire. It reminded me of a saying my mother used to trot out when I was growing up, whenever I got exercised by some trivial contretemps or other — bad hair day, missed party, hallway snub.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
orionmagazine.org | Ellen Wayland-Smith |Marcia Bjornerud
Marcia Bjornerud’s wise and sweeping book, Turning to Stone: Discovering the Sublte Wisdom of Rocks, shows us how learning to situate our human selves within the expanded time scales of deep geology is paramont to forging a more ethical, sustainable way of living in partnership with the earth. Together we sat down to discuss the role of metaphor in science, sacred time, and some really, really old rocks.
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May 16, 2024 | 
themillions.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
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May 16, 2024 | 
everand.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
“Tell me, my daughters,” says King Lear, announcing his intention to divest himself “of rule… [and] territory,” of “cares of state,” as he points to a map of his kingdom spread out before him. “Which of you shall we say doth love us most / That we our largest bounty may extend?”In attempting to take love’s measure, to size it up and apportion its material reward, Lear touches off the tragic series of events that will eventually destroy his house and all who inhabit it.
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Feb 2, 2024 | 
themillions.com | Ellen Wayland-Smith
The Violent Truths of ‘Brutalities’ “When I was twenty I got my entire back tattooed, the first pain I paid cash for,” writes Margo Steines early in her startling new memoir, Brutalities: A Love Story. The book can be tough to stomach.
