Serenity's Anthem: Kacey Musgraves' "Dry Spell"
Writers believe we make deliberate choices about our characters, but then a song comes on the radio and we suddenly recognize something we'd written … Continue reading >>
Fashion in a Box:
Instagram must think I need help. Not help-help, but fashion help.
Dozens of styling apps fill my feed with promises to transform me into my best-dressed self or to reveal my … Continue reading >>
None of them involve a cape!
I may not have the power to fly or read minds, but I’ve developed a few, strange, human superpowers over the years that can also be seen as oddly comforting when you … Continue reading >>
The Beauty of a Battered Language:
Finley Peter Dunne (1867 – 1936) once quipped, “When we Americans are done with the English language it will look as if it had been run over by a musical … Continue reading >>
When Fiction Meets a Real Place
Anne Tyler amazes me with how she writes about real places, Baltimore, especially, and yet somehow makes them entirely her own. Her fictional neighborhoods feel … Continue reading >>
What We Resist Until We Don’t
For years my husband has been extolling the virtues of spreadsheets. Whenever I felt overwhelmed with tasks, he’d calmly say, “Why don’t you make a spreadsheet?” I’d … Continue reading >>