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…
Before this semester started, a new school with new classes for me, I sought advice from a colleague who’s taught at the college for many years. She told me she starts the semester with existential questions for her students. Eighteen-year-olds, primarily young women at our school, spend the first class (in this case, research-based writing)…
Despite J. being away covering a story for the bulk of January, despite being under the weather, despite having a baby underfoot/overlap, despite that baby awakening at various dead-of-night hours with teething pain or some such discomfort, despite preparations for my first semester back in the classroom (this time with an age group new to…
On this final deadly Monday, my co-author Cheryl Wilder presents her examination of Pride in the writing life, and it's an eye-opener. How stealthy Pride can be, growing powerful and inciting other sins before we realize it. How deadly. I learned a great deal as we imagined, created, and revised this essay series. I learned…
Deadly Monday dawned foggy, but warmed and cleared by the afternoon when I took S. out for a walk. He fell asleep right away, which was unusual since his torticollis makes him nauseous and uncomfortable when strolling. Then I found an open bench in the hood, despite the park being closed since Hurricane Sandy ripped…
