My essay "If You Find a Mouse on a Glue Trap" (Brevity, September 2018) will be reprinted in Pushcart's annual anthology. When the email from Dinty W. Moore arrived yesterday, I read it more than a few times. More than a dozen, I think. It took that many readings to decode: "Your piece has been…
I began writing seriously in 2006, during my first of two grad school programs. I was sure that I wanted writing to be part of my life, but I was unsure that I wanted writing to be the central focus of my life. I entered grad school with an urge to learn about everything and…
Why do we write—why especially do we write real life—without knowing what we're creating? Without a conscious plan? Because our lives happen minute to minute and there's nothing we can do about it. Sometimes, as we're trying to "stay present," and the future is coming up and up and up, and the past is growing…
My work—writing, editing, teaching—is engaging, is demanding, is a series of repetitive motions with too little feedback and pay, is fused to my work as a parent and education advocate, is largely done at home and therefore in conflict/balance with household management, is wedded and threaded to my friends and family and our shared stories.…
When writer Laurie Easter told me that she'd started a weekly highlight-and-review series featuring writers she knows, that she focuses on a particular essay each time, and that she'd like me and my list essay to stand under her spotlight for an upcoming Sunday, I thought: Yes. By highlighting fellow writers' lives, processes, and finished work, Laurie…
