As It Is On Earth actually began as a short story that I wrote 15 years ago. I was teaching architecture at Parsons and used to sneak over to take a New School creative writing class after work. The professor was the writer Peter Sourian. He read the story, A Brother’s Measure, and said it had the bones of a novel. I kept that in mind for years.
Despite the many writers in my family, I never aspired to be a writer per se. I just wanted to tell this story. In a sense, the day to day stuff — family, love, pain, guilt, redemption — was the vehicle for all the other ideas I wanted to write about, particularly humanity’s relationship to the natural world: the biotic versus the social, earth time vs. human time, and contingency. If you were in one of my classes at The School for Constructed Environments at Parsons, you’d hear a lot on these topics. But, this book is fiction, and as my wife is wont to say: “It’s really just a love story.”
Yes, that too.
Nevertheless, you can be sure to hear plenty on some of the other heady topics in Ruminations…, my weekly – dare I say it – blog (formerly known as Dies Iovis, Ergo... which is, roughly, latin for “Thursday: Therefore this is what’s on my mind).” Philosophy, the natural world, religious history, American history, family history, literature and, of course, architecture and social space (I am an architect, after all).
I’ll also keep you up to date on any articles, readings, reviews or interviews that are published about me and/or my books.
Please feel free to engage at Ruminations...
