“I have a stubborn stamina and the joke about me at work is that I’m relentless. Not a prick, not a micromanager, not personally critical, just staying there are all night to play with the words one more time. I know I can be exhausting. If you come to my funeral, tell ‘em I’m sorry.”

Lindsey in an e-mail:
I would like to tell Mr. Ottaway that the workshop was a powerful way to pass on the legacy of Mike Levine, a man many of us never got to meet but whose influence we felt keenly last weekend. I thought the workshop struck the right balance between informality and structure, between the solitary work of writing [...]

“Like all authentic moments, I could only feel it afterwards.”

Lee in an e-mail:
I asked the managing editor if I could start a writing group here. He said he was all for it. Said that the mood has been so down here, with editors overworked due to lay offs and additional editing responsibilities. “In the end, it’s good stories that will either save us or [...]

Christian Livermore: “The day after the Mike Levine Workshop, my assignment was to cover the Orange County Chamber of Commerce luncheon, where Reps. Maurice Hinchey and John Hall were scheduled to speak. No news came from the event, but I noticed things like the fact that everybody’s shoes were pristine in spite of a sudden [...]

“What is it like to have your body betray you? We will all find out. The neurons misfire, the synapses don’t click. The auto-immune response of dying of old age — depression, loss of hearing, unsteady legs. Sooner or later, life shows its claws. We all fail. There is a 100 percent mortality rate for [...]

“My fellow managers are rooting for me to fire one of our reporters. I want to throttle him, too, sometimes, but I see something in him. I can talk him from this cliff, but nobody wants me to. I don’t know. No lesson is learned if we just can him as our first move. Just [...]

“We all do our best, I think. We all miss the mark. We get points for getting up each day, trying hard, mostly being kind to each other, knowing what’s coming in the end.”