When I was teaching, I had a student one year who, no matter what I assigned, would connect the assignment to a horse. I taught sixth grade at a small school and the only subject I wasn’t in charge of was Music, so I enjoyed the efforts she went to in including a horse not just in writing and reading,… View Post

A small conversation: Hadley, Harper, and I are in the car and John Mayer’s “Edge of Desire,” comes on the radio. Hadley huffs, rests her head on the window, then mutters, “John Mayer is a boy who likes to be sad.” Harper looks out the window and listens to the song, then says in a voice that I can only… View Post

Following is the first in a series of essays that take a look at how books work in order to write essays and stories of our own better.  Women finding themselves with child this year will walk out of their OB/GYN offices with a bag full of parenting magazines, samples of things like formula and diaper cream, and oodles of… View Post

hello. What I want to do is tell you about Bilbo Baggins and the butterflies. He’s in this forest – I’m not sure why; I don’t think he knows why, either – and he’s been told to go climb the tallest tree in an effort to get the crew the f- outta there (man-eating spiders inhabit this forest, hence the… View Post

These days are treacherous, aren’t they? There is so much to worry about; so much to be angry and sorrowful over. I almost feel ashamed at the joy I feel when I look out the window at the leaves that shout their brightness back to me. Don’t make too big a deal out of that beauty, I think. It’s not making a… View Post