Reading

I thought at first I would write of our school experience this fall and why we made huge changes we never before considered with our fourth grader. It turns out that I don’t want to write about how painful it’s been. I only want to write to you about what I’ve discovered about my kid… Read more

Learning Wonders

I’ve debated writing about this for several years. I haven’t wanted to reveal too much about my young son that he might not want me to say. But something about losing my mother has made me brave. And the more I research and learn about how to help my kid love learning, the more I… Read more

Ursula K. Le Guin died this week. I had another plan for this post but now she has died and it’s all I want to write about. When I first heard the news on the radio, my heart dropped. I was almost home and my big red van was cresting one of those small hills… Read more

If you want to find a good read, go to a writing conference.  Writers, I have learned, are jittery about their own books. As often as not, we struggle to tell you what our books are about or why we fell in love with our own stories enough to spend days, months, and years writing them. But as soon as… Read more

When I was a teenager, working in the garden numbed my brain with boredom. I could not understand how my mother spent hours and days pulling weeds and clipping dead branches. I loved the beauty of the place and went to the roses to talk to her often, but I could only do the work… Read more

Every summer about this time, I remember the libraries have programs for reading with prizes to encourage reading. My mom tells me I began doing this in the card catalog days of my grade school years, and most summers I’ve remembered to sign my kids up before the end of July. (The libraries are always generous and let… Read more

The other day my son said, “You know you’ve got a LOT of books on writing on your bookshelf. Have you read all of those?” Mostly, I told him. (He wasn’t particularly impressed — just astounded that I could stay focused for that long on reading books about putting words on paper.) And he doesn’t even… Read more

Creative Beginnings: Part One

This month I’d like to start a series on creative beginnings. It’s not very original. January is a time for beginning a new year and resolutions and what not. But I am taking the excuse of a new calendar on my wall to reimagine my writing and my work by looking at what other creative… Read more

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