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Continue reading →: Basement Missive: Weekly Writing Goals, #2Greetings all. I hope this edition of Basement Missives finds you well, and enjoying the hell out of the new year. Just a quick update and breakdown of my weekly writing goals. Saturday 01/06 → 221/566: This was a busy Saturday, and I fell short of the goal. Thankfully, I…
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Continue reading →: Weekly Writing GoalsBasement Missive From the Frozen North: I estimated that I need at least 17,000 words in the month of January to get somewhere near the end of this draft of the novel, though based on where the story’s moving this week, it will probably be slightly higher. To reach this…
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Continue reading →: Murakami Leads to Burton and Burton Leads BeyondDuring the first trimester of Sophomore English we read Haruki Murakami’s “The Seventh Man.” This was my first experience with Murakami and I was hooked. I turned to my local public library system (shout out to Great River Regional), and found the audiobook of The Strange Library. In this tale, a…
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Continue reading →: A New Year’s Basement Missive: January Goals and StewardshipHappy New Year and Huzzah! I’m writing this at the tail end of New Year’s Day, hunkered down in my basement. Outside, temperatures continue to fluctuate somewhere between zero and -20. Thankful for a functioning furnace, wool socks, and a splash of scotch in hot honey-lemon water. Last day of…
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Continue reading →: Summer CampWood smoke and birdsong drift through the open windows of our home, and I’m transported a short jaunt back in time to a cabin on the outskirts of Fall Creek, WI.
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Continue reading →: Last Day
There’s nothing incredibly insightful in the following narrative. Just a what’s what of the last day of school. At 10:30 this morning, the final bell rang, and students fled my classroom and subsequently the school, sparing no glances back. I couldn’t help but picture that final bell scene in Linklater’s…
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Continue reading →: Election: The AftermathHello there. I’m penning this missive from a survival bunker deep beneath the earth’s surface, surrounded by massive stockpiles of freeze-dried and canned goods. Okay, that’s a fib, and a poor one at that. Truthfully, I’m in my well-lit, finished basement, plunking away at a keyboard, whilst sipping a mug…
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Continue reading →: Flashlights in Dark Rooms: Conquering Fear Through ReadingWhen I was younger, I brought books with me everywhere I went. In the fourth grade, when all of my friends were playing baseball, and I thought it would be a wise decision to join up, I soon discovered that I was one of the worst players on the team.…
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![“America is about […] Poor People”](https://rlpurdy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/sgunlovesngs.jpg?w=646)
Continue reading →: “America is about […] Poor People”America, I think, is about poor people playing music and poor people sharing food and poor people dancing, even when everything else in their lives is so desperate, and so dismal that it doesn’t seem that there should be any room for music, any extra food, or any extra energy…
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Continue reading →: “They Slept Under a Tree…”They slept under a tree near the overpass, side by side on top of August’s plastic sheet. Kirsten slept fitfully, aware each time she woke of the emptiness of the landscape, the lack of people and animals and caravans around her. Hell is the absence of the people you long for…
Greetings,
I’m Ryan
I’m an E-12 Data Integrationist, amateur pasty-crafter, and sporadic storyteller. I hang my hat in central Minnesota with my wife, our three children, a labradoodle, and a couple of cats.
I earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Augsburg University, and my fiction has appeared in Talking Soup, Barstow & Grand, and Volume One.
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Purdy Good 