Pigeons have always liked the spot outside of the kitchen window. The net tied across the air shaft running down the height of the building keeps them out for a while, but they pick their way through eventually. About six years ago another pair of birds successfully fledged two chicks, in a nest made out of their own shit, after which all of them took off and flew away forever. I am elated to find the new nest, made of switches and twigs. ________________ Six crooked ladders

I’m not going to AWP this year. In a lot of ways, it’s a relief. But many other people will be going to AWP, and some of them for the very first time. What can they expect from the massive conference? There are a lot of resources online about the annual AWP conference that aspiring writers and conference attendees can turn to if they need to find out about the big event. Unfortunately—and possibly by design—a lot of that information can be totally misleading. In order to real

This month, with spring around the corner, I decided to use the Ukiyoe Tarot (U.S. Games Systems, Inc.) which is full of flowers and birds and generally bright, warm colors. The Ukiyoe Tarot is a Marseilles/Rider-Waite redesign in the Ukiyo-e style of art. Ukiyo-e used woodblock-printing to depict the day-to-day life from the fields to the Emperor's palace in 17-19th Century Japan, the Edo period. It was a time when the shoguns had solidified their power under a figurehead em