Field Notes: April

Twenty, twenty, and a short king from Boston

Apr 30, 2026

Painted entirely with small dots of pure color mostly in slate and azure blue, olive green, and cream white, this scene shows a sandy beach stretching to a lighthouse at the center and a four-story building to our right in this horizontal seascape. The tall, slender lighthouse standing on the water’s edge a short distance from us is painted with specks of azure and sky blue, ivory, and peach. In the distance to our left, a pier stretches into the sea along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up this composition. A sailboat floats just off the pier, near the left edge of the painting. To our right of the lighthouse and extending off the right edge of the canvas, the building has three levels of windows and a row of dormers along the tall, peaked roof. The building is painted with touches of dove gray, sapphire blue, and pale pink. In front of the building and to our right, a denim-blue shed has a tangerine-orange roof. A wooden rowboat outlined in cornflower blue with flecks of dandelion yellow rests on the sand next to the shed. In front of us, dots of moss green blend into the blond tones of the sand, creating an impression of grass on the beach. Sunlight shimmers on the sea to our left, which is painted with short dashes of mint and seafoam green, baby blue, cream, and shell pink, beneath a clear, ice-blue sky. — Seurat. *The Lighthouse at Honfleur*.

This month I was unusual.

I ginned up the courage to sign up for a writers’ workshop. Now once a week I’m hopping on a train—to Midtown—to sit in a dank room with a grey table and honest strangers.

I was never much of a fiction writer, and the last time I tried was twenty years ago. If you took my kids’ ages and doubled it, you still would not get twenty. (What have I been doing in all that time?)

The first week, the teacher (I guess we can call him teacher, maybe instructor) asked me to read a story I had just spent only twenty minutes writing.

If you’ve never been to a writer’s workshop, it goes like this: you read a story by someone incredibly accomplished that knocks you over by the way it simply works. To me, a good story is like a clock. An assembly of intricate components into a single object. A great story is seamless, so perfect that its details can be easily overlooked. It’s solid in your hand. You feel the tick-tick-tick.

And then you’re expected to write something quickly and hold it up to the class. You’ve been coloring outside the lines with crayons in the middle of the Louvre.

The story I had to read out loud had a prompt, crowdsourced by the class. Typically, the writer-teacher-instructor will use some conceit to have the class generate a bunch of words, then you use some of them to craft a story.

In this case, we had to build a dating profile for an imaginary man.

What does a man created by a room full of new york moonlighting writers look like? Say hi to Corey. He’s a short king from Boston, an architect, very religious, loves fishing and birding, and his favorite drink is a non-alcoholic beer.

Then writer-teacher-instructor told us we had twenty minutes to write. Go.

If you’re curious if a workshop is for you, I say give it a try. You won’t know what kind of high art you’re capable of unless you try. All it takes is twenty minutes.

What I’ve been reading.

Happy National Poetry Month. May I recommend a few?

Loud Music by Stephen Dobyns (ask me if I have a favorite poem)
How to Triumph Like a Girl by Ada Limón
Mathematics by Jane Hirshfield

Thanks to the workshop, I’ve been reading more short stories.

This story from Miranda July about meeting a famous person on an airplane was marvelous. Absurd and clever:

I tossed handfuls of water toward my armpits and they landed on my skirt. It was made from the kind of fabric that turns much darker when it is wet. This was a real situation I had got myself into. I acted quickly, taking off my skirt and soaking the whole thing in the sink, then wringing it out and putting it back on. I smoothed it out with my hands. There. It was all a shade darker now.

And please read this 3-page story about a school where things can’t stop dying. It had me cracking up and getting weird looks on the subway. No spoilers.
Now I’m working my way through the sublime Brokeback Mountain.

An illustration of two figures in cowboy hats and a distant mountain

What I’ve been listening to.

The queen is back. I recommend Robyn’s new album, especially if you’re near or over the age of 40, or spiritually 40 (frequently shutting your eyes in the shower or in the driver’s seat and imagining you’re back in the clurb).

See you in May!
gaurav

Not down in any map

Ready for more?