I didn’t want to write about this because I am afraid. I am afraid that people I know and care about will think less of me because I went to the Women’s March last Saturday. I’m afraid they’ll be angry or disapprove. But every time I started to think about what to write this week… Read more
words
Do you remember Flat Stanley? The cut out that kids sent to their friends and family around the world? My son’s kindergarten teacher gave his class a gingerbread man to send instead of Stanley. Quinton’s cut out is making his way around Tokyo with my friend from high school who came to visit us this… 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
In the early 1990s, I traveled to Germany and became desperately homesick. I had decided I wanted to really learn German and went on a work visa to Hamburg, far away from the American military bases. I lived with a German friend in her apartment and found a job serving banquets in a nearby hotel. My German… Read more
Warning: My dog died. Read on at your own risk. Last weekend we had to say goodbye to our sweet Cosmo. It’s a sad story with a sad ending that I don’t feel like telling on the Interwebs. In fact, I’m late posting this week because I don’t feel like telling that story, but it’s… Read more
“For this weekend, you get to call yourselves writers loud and proud instead of in a small voice at the end of a long list of other things you do.” My writing teacher Lois Brandt said this (or something very like it) at the beginning of our Weekend on the Water retreat with the Society of Children’s… Read more
I am hovering on the edge of doing anything writerly lately. I look at the work I need to do, lift my pen, scribble a few words, and then put the pen back down. The keyboard isn’t much better. I’ll open programs, stare at a screen, and then wander away to vacuum. Or worse. I’ll… Read more
I’ve struggled with what to write this week. Much has happened. A double funeral with dear friends who lost a mother and a father in two days. The kindness of neighbors who could have hurt us but didn’t. Neither of these are my stories to tell, though. So I won’t. I did see something that… Read more