There’s a certain type of writer that emerges at the fringes of any healthy writing community. He or she shows up to events and listens carefully and reads faithfully and comments insightfully, but when you rightly sniff around to ask about any writing they might be doing, they … [Read more...]

Ah, harvest time. The time of pumpkins and colorful leaves and crisp air and getting the kids’ Halloween costumes on time and figuring out who to invite for Thanksgiving and how not to gain fifteen pounds by Christmas because you’ll have to attend a New Year’s Eve party that your … [Read more...]

I’m sorry, but isn’t this just the most annoying advice in the world? There’s nothing worse than someone telling you to calm down and slow down when all you want to do in reaction to, say, a political election that is dividing your country, is stress eat under the blankets with … [Read more...]

When I was in high school, I had what might have been my favorite job ever: working as a tour guide for the Longfellow National Historic Site. Located just outside Harvard Square on an old, tree-lined street, the Longfellow NHS is a grand, yellow house on a few acres of gardens … [Read more...]

I was having coffee with one of my dearest writer friends this weekend when the subject of ego came up. She is gracious and funny and ridiculously talented and accomplished, so I was surprised to hear her mention how much she struggles with Ego, too, that side of herself that … [Read more...]

I returned to writing this afternoon after a hiatus of a few days. My husband kindly offered to manage the house and kids on his day off while I took several hours after lunch to dive back into my latest project. Unfortunately, things didn’t exactly go as planned. Instead of … [Read more...]

It’s always heard as an insult, this particular piece of advice. It’s what we tell people who’ve gone out on a limb to seek some kind of fulfillment that doesn’t offer immediate pay or benefits, usually after their early efforts at fulfillment result in … [Read more...]

I’m having a crisis of authorial faith. “Hey!” you might say, “maybe it has something to do with the strain of having seven children to look after yesterday and your mom recovering from double knee replacement and your husband having been at trial and your kids going back to … [Read more...]

Over breakfast the other day, I took the liberty of informing my father that I was going to make it my mission to get him a hobby. I can do this because he can't get rid of me and I love him enough that I don't mind annoying him into happiness. A little context: he turned 81 … [Read more...]

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I'm not a believer in true originality. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that we have been telling the same twelve or so stories since that first, fateful circle around a campfire, and that all of them are essentially around … [Read more...]