Now that we are facing a new year, it seems like the perfect time to talk about point of view. Like any perspective, when we needlessly reduce it, it becomes that much harder to understand. I used to think there was something wrong with me when I found it so difficult to choose … [Read more...]

I don’t know about you, but if you’d asked me a year ago what I’d do if I were suddenly unable to leave the house for the better part of a year, I’m pretty sure I would have come up with a fantastic, fantastical description of all the writing I’d get done and all the quality time … [Read more...]

Early last month, my seventeen-year-old son and I got into a heated argument in the waiting room of our dermatologist. The doctor was running late, and I was having a stressful day, and despite the mask on my face, he could see the rage simmering in my eyes. “You shouldn’t get … [Read more...]

It’s hard to be a parent in the 21st century without having to grapple with standardized assessments of your kids. There you are, puttering merrily along, enjoying and supporting your kid quirks and all, when out of nowhere a letter arrives in the mail reducing said kid to a … [Read more...]

Earlier this week, I unwittingly managed to make my normally even-keeled, happy-go-lucky teen daughter dissolve into a weepy, angry ball of misery. It was a really nice addition to the already crowded, shadowy side of my parenting hall of fame. I’d like to say it was because I … [Read more...]

Consider this as a hypothetical situation: For the past three months, you’ve been holed up inside your house, trying to be on your best behavior while secretly nursing a seriously bad attitude and getting blindsided by tsunamis of anxiety. Maybe you were OK at first, and maybe … [Read more...]

So recently, my sister got me hooked on this particularly odd show on the History Channel called “Alone.” It features 10 survivalists who are each flown to an uninhabited area of Vancouver Island during the rainy season. It features a surprising number of grown men crying, … [Read more...]

Physicists tell us that the more we know about where a particle is, the less we can know about how fast it’s going. This idea is meant to help us understand the limitations of our knowledge in the quantum realm, but it seems to pretty handily capture what it’s like to sit on your … [Read more...]

When I was younger, I thought the toe-curling reaction I had to a few hours of writing time stretching out before me made me abnormal. Either I had confused what I thought was a feverish passion for writing with some other fever – a delusional one, perhaps – or I didn’t have the … [Read more...]

Self-promotion is rarely easy, but I think it’s particularly difficult for writers. For starters, many of us come to writing because we’d much prefer to be on a cozy couch with a book than marching a sandwich board down Broadway. And to make matters far worse, if we manage to … [Read more...]