Steve Edwards @The_Big_Quiet Twitter profile

Pinned Tweet

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 months

Many thanks to @yalereview for publishing this essay of mine. I hope you all will read it. ❤️

Steve Edwards: "Yellow Band"

An autism diagnosis in adulthood changes the writer's relationship to his work and to himself.

yalereview.org

71

43

294

Last Seen Profiles

@MedtronicCEMA

@BraakBert

@junpalim

@Eigo_Ichii

@scottmenville

@SulakeIstanbul

@jacubwinslow

@TarotYouuuu

@ZeinaMansour1

@stw46

@ThePunishedRed

@IR_Aesthetics

@Guglielmo_Tell

@DannaGarcia

@PhysOfLifeLMU

@xXFOXYX99323979

@Frogland_io

@hro

@SPIDERCOMICXS

@dogepunrocks

@Tompew

@LironDamir

@jandakembangstw

@koheith

@RiseReinhard

@btc2009white

@BruceWayneSr

@Trianyte_Dingle

@RICKYMYL0VE

@NICKIRAPGENlUS

@ughhblog

@i1_00

@fillenoirs

@isobel_g08

@BentonBoySoccer

@PasutriAsli2

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

What will you do with a liberal arts degree? Oh, I don’t know. Not be brainwashed by a death cult & storm the capitol.

550

11K

93K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Book people: This is what it’s all about.

109

3K

22K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 months

There’s a crack in everything. That’s where the blossoms get in.

17

2K

15K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

Open the nearest book to page 24. The first full sentence is how the election is going to turn out.

12K

772

7K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

6 years

Pro tip: The moral arc of the universe only bends toward justice if we put our goddamn weight on it.

12

2K

5K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

Interviewer: can you explain the gap in your resume? Leonard Cohen: there’s a crack in everything/ that’s how the light gets in.

12

467

3K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

I hope it’s nice today in whatever bathroom you lock yourself in to get some peace.

18

160

2K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

7 years

poem

35

1K

2K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

I won’t embarrass him by mentioning his name, but several years ago a reader of my book befriended me here. In addition to sending me newspaper clippings/stories from southern Oregon, he & his wife sent my son wonderful gifts—a homemade quilt, obsidian, geodes, pine cones. (1/2)

18

34

2K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

Though we have never met or even spoken on the phone, I consider them family friends. Their wholesomeness & warmth mean the world to me. I say all this by way of encouraging you, my fellow struggling writers. Write your books. You have no idea what might happen next.

8

23

2K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

This is the Linda Pastan that stays with me. In fact, I ask my classes this question now.

15

225

1K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

National Book Award winner William Stafford published 67 books in his lifetime, the first of which when he was 46. Onward, friends.

26

113

1K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

My dad offered me some pretty good writing advice tonight: just write a best-seller.

77

45

1K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

Learned today that my kid's beloved kindergarten teacher has been moved to hospice care--mere weeks after diagnosis of an aggressive cancer. Hey friends: This life is going to take back everything it ever gave you. Don't wait to be happy.

30

63

1K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

7 years

Fear of Obama drove up sales of guns. Fear of Trump is driving up sales of books.

22

500

1K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

That thing where you stop reading & hold the book to your chest a second before returning to it.

19

101

1K

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 month

It's not how well you write. It's how well you revise. The real darling you have to kill is your ego. The version of yourself who willingly volunteered to write slop so you--these days-months-years later--might come along & redeem it: bless that fool.

9

137

908

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

This is a big essay for me, one I hope you’ll read & share. 1/

Misunderstanding Thoreau: Reading Neurodiversity in Literature and in Life

“How does it feel—emotionally—to be wrong?” Kathryn Schulz asks the audience at her 2011 TED Talk entitled “On Being Wrong.” I show the video to my first-year writing students every semester on the…

lithub.com

90

190

875

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

7 months

The sunlight traveled 93 million miles just to slide across my kitchen floor, crawl up into my lap like a cat, & pin me to this moment.

25

110

864

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

Because my son is approaching shaving age, my wife wanted to know: Who taught me how to shave? What was the experience like? As a GenX person, this seemed magical to me—the idea of being taught a life skill. No, I watched my dad. I watched TV. I told no one & just figured it out.

75

30

787

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

Every so often you get reminded of why it matters that you write. Case in point from @TheSunMagazine . My little essay about making coffee for my wife made its way to a group of incarcerated writers, who, in an act of generosity, began a ritual of making coffee for each other.

54

89

796

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

9 months

Alas

21

41

723

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

8 years

You can't appeal to his logic, reason, humanity, or shame: those faculties aren't in his possession. Someone please just enforce the law.

11

302

694

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

There is not a beauty shortage.

9

130

631

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Our own life has to be our message. —Thich Nhat Hanh

5

127

626

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

You think you know your kids (pun intended). Then you read their fiction.

70

100

608

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

@MrichhcirM I’ve seen kindergartners with a keener sense of justice & self-control than what we saw yesterday.

6

10

596

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

@rebeccamakkai Granddad appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.

8

3

596

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

There are four 13-year-old boys in my house. If we drank every time one of them said “Bro” or “Ohio,” we’d all be dead. I don’t k ow the significance of “Ohio” but it is apparently hilarious.

78

9

599

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

I guess I just love my family too much to write a novel on my lunch break & sell it for six figures.

11

25

603

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Friendly reminder for my fellow writers: You have no idea who is waiting for your words. Who needs your words. The worlds of friendship & warmth & love your words can unlock. There is still plenty of magic in this broken world. Touch it. Be touched by it.

8

115

593

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

I guess I didn’t want to forget this brilliant & original idea.

39

20

587

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

One thing I love about Twitter is how tirelessly people work to understand each other before forming opinions.

24

30

548

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

Your writing will change the world. I don't mean the words, most of which will gather dust or get thrown away. I mean the discipline of putting sentences on the page, what that does to the heart & mind with which you meet your life.

13

88

533

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

8 months

It makes me sad when a student uses Chat GPT in an essay: 1) The writing itself is terrible; 2) Confirming it's AI wastes my time; 3) My annoyance at the student & the guilt it trips in me for not crafting an AI-proof assignment; 4) & knowing this is all a losing battle.

49

33

521

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 month

So much.

12

60

524

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

4

83

505

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Hey, fictions writers, not sure if you can use this but I was just outside & it was “a bright, cold morning.”

29

22

499

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

@ENOgden Yes, & I’m from Indiana—& it’s pronounced “awnry.” 😂

19

3

491

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

My ideal writers group: We meet early on Saturday mornings, at a diner, & sit in a booth with breakfast, & the only rule is no one can talk about writing.

43

19

493

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

I am so excited to share this essay with you all. It’s a cornerstone piece in my new collection. Thank you, always, for reading & sharing. I’m grateful for the community of writers here.

Rain Shadows

When you have been through something terrible, and you know deep down the outcome could have been otherwise, you develop a strange gratitude for everyday life. The smallest acts of generosity can...

www.thesunmagazine.org

130

87

486

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

7 months

I think part of the reason so many students use ChatGPT on their writing assignments—even when expressly forbidden—is that in our fetish for standardization we have already asked/encouraged them, in a thousand ways, to become little robots.

30

60

478

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

General reminder to nonfiction writers: 1) It may not be possible or advisable to try to tell the whole story; 2) Fragments may be more interesting—rhyming actions, patterns, sequences; 3) Telling the whole story won’t save you; 4) You don’t need saving.

8

64

471

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

June bringing it.

16

18

465

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

@BookWorld A serene picture indicates a peaceful transfer of power.

8

2

458

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

It’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but listening—just *listening*—to my 13-year-old talk about school, sadness, boredom, anger, etc, without trying to fix everything with words ranks right up there.

16

7

463

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

7 months

Non-writers don't understand. One day you can write easily, the next you can't. You feel like a fraud, a waste of space, an idiot. You flirt with giving up. Then here come the words again, like a tomcat come home, nonchalant, proud of itself, wondering what all the fuss is about.

22

70

466

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

9 months

My dad let me know last night that he now considers me a full adult. Reader, I am 49.

52

4

451

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

7 years

I don't know to whom this belongs but I love it & thank you.

5

251

415

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

@growingupgeeky Winner!!!!

2

6

437

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

Annual reminder: Someone needs your words more than you need the safety of not saying them.

16

74

430

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Happy birthday to my literary hero William Stafford.

17

76

430

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

11 days

My son listening to Bon Jovi: -Was Tommy an editor? -Huh? -It said he used to work on the docs.

25

41

429

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

A floof has arrived at our house.

35

4

421

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

Someone just told me you can't explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they take things literally.

14

67

404

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

This is Just To Say I have eaten the blue checks that were in your bios & which you were probably thinking weren’t nutritious Forgive me my ego is starving so jealous & so huge

11

60

406

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

One of the challenges of memoir is you think you already know the story. You may know what happened or most of what happened. But what it means is something else. Likely something much scarier.

24

32

385

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

My goal for 2020 was to snag a literary agent. Well, guess what? As of today I’m thrilled to announce it’s also my goal for 2021. 😂

31

2

374

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

A scene from Mad Men I think about all the time is when Don & Betty took the kids for a picnic in the park & afterward just left all their trash their without one thought of picking it up. That is how you reveal character.

30

15

371

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

One thing I’m getting tired of is personal growth.

21

29

365

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Neighbors cut down my favorite tree today. What a luxury to grieve such a relatively small thing in a world on fire. But it was still a companion.

54

7

367

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

6 months

A student asked me today if poetry had rules. I said yes. He said what are they? I said the ones you consent to & the ones you make.

12

45

356

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

5 years

My poetry students were like, "Steve, will you read us one of your poems on the last day of class?" I was like, "Um...I don't really write poems." But then I wrote them one. Hope they like it.

35

53

350

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Better write that memoir quick, before you change again.

6

39

353

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

8 years

My essay for Orion Magazine is online! This one means the world to me. Orion Magazine | The Blossoming Child

The Blossoming Child - Orion Magazine

A father turns to nature to find solace for his ailing child.

orionmagazine.org

37

139

342

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Got rear-ended taking my kid to school. We are bruised up & a little freaked but ok. “This is my first time riding in an ambulance,” he cheerfully informed the EMT. Hold your people. ❤️

68

0

356

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

A question I ask often in my 40s: Is something wrong or is this just how everything feels now?

14

15

350

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Small celebration of a good thing? Next fall an essay of mine will appear in an anthology w/ some of my all-time literary heroes.

54

3

345

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

My 16-yr-old nephew shows no interest in getting his driver’s license. Is this indicative of a larger trend of folks waiting until they’re a little older? What are you seeing?

342

5

345

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

Me after being away from Twitter for a few months.

50

14

346

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Where are my people who when something good happens are filled with dread waiting for the other shoe to drop?

61

3

341

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

Before we all lived inside our phones, I used to look at cheap atlases & flip through the pages reading town names, tracing rivers, wondering about all the lives reduced to little black dots. Had this dream of disappearing somewhere nobody knew me. Still sounds kind of nice. You?

42

13

343

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

Some of you have never been to Blockbuster video on a Saturday night in your early 20s & felt searing depression & it shows.

21

20

342

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

I’m designing a new poetic form called a Jenny. Here are the number of syllables per line: 8, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9.

22

38

337

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

5 years

On this day 8 years ago I discovered a letter in my adjunct mailbox at University of Nebraska letting me know I wouldn’t be needed next semester. No phone call. Not even an email. A letter after the semester had ended.

18

66

331

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

I don’t know if we can be friends if you don’t have a favorite tree.

90

36

336

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

It’s your dad here. Bad things happen all the time, & sometimes—maybe a lot of the times—there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. All the more reason to love as fiercely as you can & be gentle with yourself. The world needs more people like that. You’re a good kid.

7

44

342

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

My kid raged last night & lost his screen privileges—except for a book club he does with his friend. They are chatting now. His friend is reassuring him that everybody gets mad sometimes, that there’s plenty to do off a screen, suggesting they write a story together. 😭😭😭😭😭😭

17

8

330

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

My son on Zoom with his speech therapist. Her: What do you do when you get mad? Him: I yell & cry. Her: Do you have anything you could kick? Like a box? Him: Sometimes I swear using words my dad always says. The S-word. The C-word. Me from the other room: THE C-WORD IS ‘CRAP!’

22

9

330

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

5 years

My son’s school gives kindness homework: -Write someone a thank-you note -Tell someone they are special -Offer to help cook dinner -Offer to help with the dishes -Donate to a charity -Clean up a mess you didn’t make & I’m assigning this homework to you, Twitter friends.

5

77

326

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

Gen X tweet. When we were younger, someone could give you their number, & if you lost it you would just never see them again.

28

24

327

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

There are plenty of essays by people who messed up their lives & have massive regrets. Where are the essays by people who sacrificed & made good choices & regret their lives? I want to read those.

34

13

323

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

This is a puppy account now.

20

5

320

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

5 years

My son demands Billy Joel in the car. He calls this “rolling & Joeling.” Pray for me.

18

315

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Henceforth this behavior shall be known as Denching.

18

38

318

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

8 years

Dear Dems: Boycott the inauguration & steal the story! That's how this new reality works!

12

151

296

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

5 months

8 years ago today @Orion_Magazine published an essay of mine w/ an illustration by Sandra Ure Griffin. That’s my son in the dogwood tree. That’s the owl I’d hear in my 3 a.m. dejection. Let me tell you—this kind of care & skill & attention to detail is such a gift.

13

14

314

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

Reminder: Write to the writers whose work moves you. A little note even. The power of the small gesture, folks, can break the day wide open. Theirs & yours.

13

54

306

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

What ending to a book hovers in your mind at all times & reveals itself as needed? For me it’s the last lines of Wild by @CherylStrayed .

69

9

306

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

This is my whole heart in an essay. It’s about fireflies, writing, grandmothers, & grief. What we lose & how we hold on.

Luminescence

In the backseat on long car rides home from my grandmother’s house in southern Illinois, I cataloged light sources in the dark: gazing at flare towers burning above oil wells, watching the taillights...

www.thesunmagazine.org

41

46

298

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

A poem for any of you friends who, like me, have been feeling overwhelmed.

30

81

299

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

My son (13) saw a letter to the editor in The Sun that mentioned an essay of mine. “Dad, it must feel nice to be known like that. That’s really heartwarming. I’m proud of you.” In case you need me, I am dead.

14

4

296

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Do you ever just stand in front of your bookshelf marveling at & mourning the person you used to be?

22

18

294

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

1 year

Ask me to name the last person I’d like to hear about nature writing from.

Jamie 🇵🇸

@JTommins

1 year

skill issue

6

24

217

17

10

295

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

6 years

We write so many stories out of fidelity to the unwritable one.

11

62

281

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

3 years

Realized my students have only seen me in a mask so I’m bringing them a helpful visual aid.

21

4

289

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

4 years

Is this the part of the horror movie where the monster seems dead only to leap back to life?

17

33

275

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

11 months

Royalty statement arrived today. Sold 154 books last year. Not too bad for a quiet little memoir from a university press that came out in 2010. Thank you to everyone who has read it & passed it along over all these years. Means the world to me. ❤️

Breaking into the Backcountry - University of Nebraska Press

Writing with an elegant simplicity and resilient reverence, Edwards proves to be an astute and passionate observer of both human and Mother Nature.—Carol Haggas, Booklist OnlineIn 2001 Steve Edward...

www.nebraskapress.unl.edu

17

10

283

Steve Edwards

@The_Big_Quiet

2 years

I love teaching.

21

23

281