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Hi.




I was thinking today that you have to keep your projects from getting stale at all costs. You can't be immersed all the time in doing exactly what you want unless you're very lucky. But doing even just a little bit consistently keeps the project alive in your mind.

RECENT BLOGS

Free is Not a Living: Journalism in 2013

The disruption of the Internet is not being evenly distributed or experienced across the board. Something has to give.


newdiary-code

“Newdiary” – a Writer’s Shell Script

This is the simplest useful program I could come up with, and I use it almost every day. It’s also a good example of how useful a tiny shell script can be.


SF Public Press - New Brand

San Francisco Public Press Rebranding Project

Last year I worked with the public-interest news startup the San Francisco Public Press to re-brand the project and create a new visual identity for the paper.


Three Types of Reading

While I’m always craving immersion in the third kind of reading, if I don’t get enough of type two, I find myself distracted by my own lack of knowledge about so many things which I know so little about.


You Have to Live in the City for Years to Really Appreciate the Country

If all you’ve known is the enormity of a country day, have never known the tightness of constricted, scarce space, have never spent years without walking a dirt road or seeing a naked hillside at dawn, you can’t appreciate what you have.


How Starting a Literary Magazine Made Me More Optimistic About Rejection

I have a different reaction these days when I get a submission rejected from somewhere I have sent it: it still doesn’t feel good, but I take it less seriously than I used to.


mazzy-first-moments

Manzanita Rei: Sketches

My daughter, Manzanita Rei Allen, was born May 10th, 2012 in San Francisco. Instead of a coherent essay, for now, here’s some pictures, a video, and a couple sketches.


clouds-animation-1

Clouds Animation 1

An animation made on my iPhone with the “Animation Creator” app.


Projects

Founder of The Creosote Journal. Freelance graphic designer and web developer. Creative reader. Writer of fiction, essays and poems.

enormouswheel

  • Busy Bay Area. All business. My reality right now, at least.
  • This may be a result of holding technology back, but my 1-year-old is more interesting in mashing cheerios into the carpet than in TV.
  • It's Sunday, and Placido Domingo is the boss.
  • Sorry Berkeley, but you are the home of bad fashion. It's either frat, hippie, or bougie or some horrible combination thereof.
  • It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world—it's the American way of looking at things. - Henry Miller