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 […]
Read moreHealing 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 […]
Read moreAll week, we are celebrating the 1st Birthday of Healing Maddie Brees by offering the book for only $0.99! It’s an incredible deal, and you can find links to all your favorite e-book retailers here. I know, I know. I should have told you sooner– and I have posted about it on all the social media things. But life is […]
Read moreI think we’ve seen the last of them for this year: the first-day-of-school photos that spill down our social media screens. Darling children in their new clothes and unscuffed shoes, grinning for the camera and holding their signs: Amelia, second grade. Dylan, fourth. And the less-than-darling, I’m-too-old-for-this children, holding signs or not, wearing I-couldn’t-care clothes […]
Read moreHis 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 […]
Read moreSilence, maybe. Space to write. A quiet column of time in which to give audience to all that’s in one’s head. That might be what a writer wants. But that’s not always true. Having made room for these things precisely, a writer can find that they are absolutely not what she wants. She can find […]
Read moreHe 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 […]
Read moreMy family and I attended a play last night: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at PlayMakers Theater. It’s difficult to say that this is a wonderful play, or even, perhaps, a good one. You don’t witness a drama about false accusations, terrible lies, and gross injustice and feel good about it afterward. Which isn’t to say that the play doesn’t resolve. It certainly resolves–but […]
Read moreI always tell my pregnant friends to make plans on their due-dates. “Make sure you have something to do,” I say, because most babies aren’t born on their due dates, and by the time one is at the end of her pregnancy, a due date can feel like a bull’s eye on the calendar, fixed […]
Read moreIt 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 […]
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