"A companion to Nina MacLaughlin's luminous Summer Solstice. The year is fading. Light is fading. Solstice means sun-stilled. It's a wild sort of stilling, a thrashing frenzied sort of stilling, a stopping of time, a de-metering, a holding of the breath as the tension builds, as the dark expands, until it cracks and the light drives in. That's the hope. Pomegranate, holly branch, birch switch, mistletoe. We'll leaf with life and pass below the secret...

"Nina MacLaughlin spent her twenties working at a Boston newspaper, sitting behind a desk and staring at a screen. Yearning for more tangible work, she applied for a job she saw on Craigslist--Carpenter's Assistant: Women strongly encouraged to apply--despite being a Classics major who couldn't tell a Phillips from a flathead screwdriver. She got the job, and in Hammer Head she tells the rich and entertaining story of becoming a carpenter. Writing...