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Word Raccoon’s World

Writing that rummages, reveals, and occasionally raids the fridge.

Hi, I’m Drēma Drudge—writer, reader, traveler, tea-sipper, and recovering perfectionist. Formerly known around here under the banner *Artful Fiction*, this new space is still home to my words, my questions, and my literary heart—just now with more mischief, more mess, and a raccoon alter ego at the typewriter. It’s now Word Raccon’s World, and I’m gonna let her at it.

I’ve been obsessed with stories since I was small—reading cereal boxes at breakfast and getting lost in chapter books while perched in a mimosa tree (which birthed my twin love for novels and trees). I started writing at nine: terrible poems, melodramatic junior high stories, the usual. No one told me back then that books came from the destruction of trees, or I might have chosen to write them more gently. I’m still trying.

Eventually, I discovered that writing can be taught—and learned. I earned my MFA in Creative Writing, and I’ve since published fiction, poetry, and essays that reflect the strange, the sacred, the beautiful, and the sharp.

My writing life has taken me across oceans and through cemeteries. My first novel was written in six countries, and I’ve scribbled notes in places like a pew in the Pantheon in Rome and beside tombs in Recoleta Cemetery, Argentina. I’ve visited the homes and graves of many of my literary and artistic heroes—and somehow ended up writing in those places, too. It still surprises me.

This blog is my attempt to document the wild process of making things with words—and occasionally unraveling in public. Sometimes I share updates, sometimes I write poems, sometimes I just yell into the void with literary intent. But always, I write with my paws on the page and my eyes on what glimmers beneath.

Thanks for being here. Welcome to the den.

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