Try, Try Again
Whenever I would read about someone publishing a book for the first time, the narrative went something like this: “I worked for years on the book, but once I got an agent, it was just [...]
Whenever I would read about someone publishing a book for the first time, the narrative went something like this: “I worked for years on the book, but once I got an agent, it was just [...]
After living in the mountains (where there is no such thing as “yard work”) for years, and then in a 600-square-foot condo (where our HOA fees paid for the tiny-yard work and shoveling), Cynthia and [...]
Remarkably, I have only ten pet peeves, which is about 28 fewer than the average middle-aged American’s and 143 fewer than the average German’s. Here they are, ordered according to the extent to which they [...]
Right now, my son is outside, forging a flagstone walkway from our driveway to our front stoop. It’s 8:45 on a Tuesday morning in late April. He is a ski instructor, but the resort where [...]
Admit it: I say “teenagers,” and a part of you recoils in horror. They smell weird. They have zits. They have epic mood swings based on incidental events—an exchanged glance in the high-school hallway, a [...]
It’s not as if I were an immigrant and a part of me was Mexican or French or Ghanaian while the other part of me was American and culturally my ancestral homeland and my adopted [...]
(A guest blog written for my friend Lauree Ostrofsky at Simply Leap.) I’ve been an English professor for 30 years, and let me tell you, it’s a great way to make a living. I love [...]
I woke up yesterday morning haunted by my dream. Not by the dream itself—that was fairly typical (I was about to teach a course I'm completely unqualified to teach, and for about six hours I [...]
My father died six and a half years ago. At first, right afterward, he was "around." Hovering, I guess you could call it: at the foot of my bed; in the car, making sure I [...]
Back when I left my marriage and was really missing my children, I would be their “babysitter” once in a while. It felt weird, because before the separation I had been an equal partner in [...]