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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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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All 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 […]
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I 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 […]
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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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Silence, 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 […]
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My 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 […]
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I feel as if I’ve done a lot of traveling lately. It’s that time of year, right? Summer vacation. We’re gone, we’re here, we’re gone again. Definitely not complaining. I love to travel. But lately it’s got me thinking about how I pack. Like most people (everyone?), I’m guessing I have the normal categories: clothes, […]
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The work is not the vision itself, certainly. It is not the vision filled in, as if it had been a coloring book. It is not the vision reproduced in time; that were impossible. It is rather a simulacrum and a replacement. It is a golem. –Annie Dillard, The Writing Life On July 29, 1981, […]
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