September 3, 2018
Writing Is Thinking
Years ago, one of my writing acquaintances (we’ll call her B.) was working on her first novel when she received a suggestion from her instructor to be more specific about […]
July 9, 2018
Kondo-ing My Books, Part II: Signed, Sealed, and Decluttered
In Part 1 of this two-part series, I shared my attempts to declutter my bookshelves, a process that raised a taboo question: What to do with personally signed books that […]
July 5, 2018
Kondo-ing My Books, Part I: Empty Shelves
Let’s skip over the fact that I actually read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, something my former self never anticipated, and let’s also move past just how […]
May 21, 2018
A Writer’s Capacity for Selfishness
During my time in the MFA, I met a woman a few years younger than me at the bar after a reading. She was also a writer, but not in […]
November 11, 2016
“We need to know how to go about reaching the next days of our lives”
Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” is going around again. W.H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939” is circling through social media, as it did after September 11. Why do we turn to poems […]
April 21, 2016
Poem in Your Pocket Day is almost here
This is the twentieth year National Poetry Month has been commemorated–it began with the Academy of American Poets in 1996–and we’re pleased to be part of the national celebration. As […]