Category Archives: On Faith, Hope & Love
Scent, Sound, Words and Memory: Reading with their Great-Grandmother
The lobby was empty, decorated in the orderly, outdated way that nursing homes are. Tired but precise, precisely tired. My mother waited in a corner chair. I was late, but she wasn’t disappointed. It had been a long time since … Continue reading
Does Publishing A Novel Change Your Life?
My book’s launch party felt a little like a wedding. Well, one where my five children had already been born, and were racing around jacked up on chocolate-dipped strawberries. The bash was in an old brownstone in Boston. There was … Continue reading
Daring to Care: What fostering animals taught me about parenting
The kids were clamoring for a new pet. A year earlier we’d said goodbye to our dog, and before that, the cat. In between was an unsuccessful series of hermit crabs. When each one crossed that proverbial rainbow bridge in … Continue reading
Novel Catharsis
The day I accidentally started my novel, there was a torrential downpour. I remember sitting in the car waiting to pick up my children from preschool, rain streaming down the windshield. Like tears, I thought. And out of nowhere—because they’re … Continue reading
The One Who Won’t See It
I saw the first copy of my hardcover the other day. I won’t have it in-hand until next week, but my publisher needed a mockup for a magazine photo shoot. So the jpg appeared in my inbox, cheeky as the … Continue reading
Unexcused Absence
Last night I dreamed I was back at high school and — who hasn’t had this dream? —that I’d missed an entire semester of classes. I don’t remember whether I was naked, the usual insult to injury. But I had … Continue reading
Hobbies? What Hobbies?
A friend was talking about her Pinterest boards recently, and how she’d added a new board for “hobbies.” Since Pinterest was her latest hobby, she laughed, it was like a hobby within a hobby. “I don’t even know what I’d … Continue reading
On Rejection and the Beautiful Blueberry
I was not in the best of moods the other morning. It was gray and sleeting, and I’m guilty of letting weather affect me. The to-do list seemed overwhelming, and the calendar said there were to be no babysitting hours … Continue reading
The Training Wheels Novel
[Originally published in Beyond the Margins, April 2010] I was mid-way through reading an interview with Amy Bloom in The Guardian when I ran into a line that stopped me short. I had to read it twice. “She was in … Continue reading
