I’m a mother three times, and the births of my children were relatively easy. I say “relatively” because they were each (also) fraught in their ways. But the upshot was the same each time: healthy baby, healthy mother. I remain incredibly grateful for this. The birth of one of them, however, was a little dicey. […]
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So, maybe you’ve heard it said that writing a book is like giving birth, and publishing it is like sending one’s child out into the world. I have said that, and so have scores of others (although this one disagrees and makes some excellent points while she’s at it). The comparison works less for the degree […]
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Healing Maddie Brees and I are headed to another book club tonight. I am very much looking forward to it. It’s tricky, though: when invited, I always tell my host that I recognize the liability. Having an author present for her book’s discussion can decidedly hamper dialogue and limit expression: how many attendees will be willing […]
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His email arrived sometime in May, or maybe late April. An invitation. He’s a writer, a someday filmmaker, and he wanted to talk Art. I’ve known Joel since he was born, I guess. His family and ours go to the same church; his age falls just between that of Everett and Emma. I’m sure they […]
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He is before all things You can’t know–when waking at the gray cat’s paw to a dark sky–how the light will come through the trees at noon. Other things come first: the sliced turkey laid just so on the bread, carrots and cherry tomatoes, the mandarin, the note on the napkin. Coffee. He is before […]
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It feels like only weeks ago I was sitting at my little table in the public library. Biography section on the left, self-help on the right, and me at my table in the middle because here was a bright space with a window. I sat there almost every Monday morning for a span of three […]
Read moreA well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?”“Well,” the writer said, “I don’t know…. Do you like sentences?”The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am twenty years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, […]
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“How is your book doing?” she asked me, and I loved the question for the way she worded it: As if the book itself was doing, as if it had agency, a life of its own. As if, left to its own devices in my desk drawer, in my laptop files, it might nonetheless continue […]
Read moreYes, this is a familiar feeling. I recognize it– and I don’t like it. I would imagine, too, that it’s almost universal: that sense of having a deadline, Something Due, and so everything else must wait, or take a back seat to it, anyway. Of course, deadlines are helpful. Even necessary. I have talked about […]
Read moreI’m mailing it in today. Despite the list of blog posts waiting in my little notebook, I am only making time to do this. There is simply Too Much Else to do. My children have the day off today. Which means, of course, that one of them has a friend over, and another is at […]
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