the missing girl is still alive

Ashley Balcazar, who interviewed me about my CNF for American Literary Review, just read THE MISSING GIRL and had some nice things to say about it on Facebook: "That one will stick with you long after you finish it." When I thanked her and said it was very different from my CNF, she elaborated: "It was such a chillingly beautiful read. It's definitely different than the creative nonfiction I read, but it still feels very much true to your themes of breaking silences and recovering lost voices. I love the second-person perspective and the way it challenges prevailing narratives about violence against women. And I just started working on a lesson on polyphony for my fall class. I want to introduce my students to 'My Blue Heaven!'"

Struggling with revisions for the chapter on the federal asylum for Native Americans; I've had the separate segments laid out on the dining room table for a few days now. I thought I was stalled, but I've had a few ideas at odd moments, so the problem may be gestating in my unconscious. Yesterday I read over the chapter on serial murderer Lizzie Halliday,  who absolutely obsessed me when I wrote about her. That chapter went through more revisions than any other.

​I'm fascinated by this picture, and this newspaper clip as well. Lizzie was suspected of Jack the Ripper's murders ( and may have fomented that suspicion, while also denying it). And who are these women she claims had been dismembered and thrown into the Hudson? I couldn't find any evidence for them.

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Ashley Balcazar's bookshelf of recent reading (one of four pix)