Favorite Reads, 2016

  For some time, I’ve been averaging a little more than one book a week, but this year I finished just an even forty. There are a couple of reasons for this. One: I read several longer books, and slogged through some...

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Birth of a Story

The story comes in the wee hours, the witching hours, the stuck-between-night-and-day hours of three and five. It plays like a movie. There she is in her sweatpants, the main character. She’s anxious, unsettled (as you...

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Alberto's Lost Birthday - My Favorite Authonomy Book

  In 2010, I joined an online writing community run by HarperCollins called Authonomy. Those who know my story know this is eventually how my first novel came to be published. The community was special because so...

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Things About Grief

Grief is the worst party guest ever.  First of all, nobody invited him. It was supposed to be a fun evening, a chance to relax and God forbid—have fun. And everyone else is having fun, and speaking of things unrelated...

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Things You Learn on Your First Writing Retreat

  -     Writing some place outside of your house and writing inside your house are two vastly different enterprises. With one, there are additional tasks constantly clamoring for your attention....

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The Ordering of Place

I was reading a memoir recently, and the author talked about sitting down to draw a detailed map of a home where she felt safe and happy when she was a child—her grandparents’, I think—and I took a breath because I have done...

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Word Mantras

Every so often, usually around Mother’s Day, lists are circulated which detail the extensive duties filled by anyone with the job title “Mom.” Housekeeper, Chauffeur, Chef, Teacher, EMT, Janitor, etc.—the point being, mothers...

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Remembering Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  An old edition of The Scarlet Letter recently came into my possession. It was published by W.B. Conkey Company in Chicago and although there is no other publication information (possibly pages are missing),...

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My Sister Had a Baby We Didn't Keep: One Modern Family's Story

My sister Carol calls me around nine-thirty on a Wednesday morning. As always, her voice is cheerful and upbeat. In the background I hear the usual, accompanying sounds to her phone calls—the canned echo, the rush of cars...

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