“Be more specific,” I used to tell my writing students. “Don’t say cereal when you could say Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Don’t say your character walked into the room when you could say he sauntered in. Don’t say you were reading a book, say you were...
Full disclosure: I woke up feeling overwhelmed today, fixating way too much on hustling and keeping up the illusion of holding it all together. Then The Twelve blog posted a darn essay I wrote (just a few days ago) about breathing, laughing, and taking refuge in...
Photo by Thom Holmes on Unsplash A friend’s mom, (a dear woman I’ve written about here before), raising four kids — all six years and under and with only one family car her husband took to work each day — once wrote a letter to the State of Maine...
Recently, I joined with many other voices to mourn, honor, and celebrate Rachel Held Evans. Since her death, I’ve returned to my old journal over and over to read my notes from the last time I heard her speak in person at the Writing For Your Life Conference...
My essay, Attached — on blankies, attachment theory, total depravity and aging — was posted on The Twelve blog this weekend. I’m always grateful for the opportunity to be a part of The Twelve’s community, even more grateful if somehow the words in my head...
My Ash Wednesday story was posted on The Twelve blog this week, and I’ve been praying my favorite Frederick Buechner quote from his memoir, Telling Secrets: “My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right,...
I’m excited to share that my essay, “The Orchard” is published in the Winter issue of Longridge Review. You can read it here. I began the first draft of this essay in my college dorm room about 20 years ago and picked it back up last year as I began...
This past fall, on a beautiful, sunny Saturday, I attended a writing workshop with my college poetry professor, Jack Ridl. We were cozied into a small church hall and given permission to dig into our memories and free write and start pieces that maybe we’d...
In November, many people post pictures to express the things for which they’re most thankful. Because I love talking about books, because I think words matter that much, because I think stories have the power to transform and challenge us, I’m going to post a book a...
I was featured today on The Twelve blog. You can read that post here. I also highly recommend subscribing to The Twelve, which is the blog of Perspectives Magazine — it’s well worth a read each day.