The Hard Work of Writing

That is to say, writing your name over and over again.

Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk, a memoir about death, nature, falconry, T. H. White, and becoming feral and then human again, which has won all sorts of prizes, labors at signing her name on dozens of shelf copies for the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver last Thursday night.

"I get absolutely off my face on Sharpie fumes," she said. "It's how I get my kicks these days."

Her column for the New York Times has ended, so I will be removing it from the blogrolls, but she explained further at dinner after the signing that she will be writing longer nature-and-culture essays for the paper.