It appears I have a new authorly addiction: Skyping with students. In the last month or so, I’ve been lucky enough to have a Skype author visit with students almost every Friday. Forget chicken soup for the writer’s soul–these chats … Read more

A day late, and a bad joke too many, but for labor day… I was thinking about fictional depictions of childbirth. Not motherhood, mind you, but proper labor. I think this is something most of us mothers would rather leave … Read more

For me, death is the hardest chapter to bear in the story of a life.

Recently, my brother asked me to share some good memories about my grandmother, who passed on the fourth of July after a long struggle with … Read more

Anybody who’s remotely paying attention should know that I love Scrivener. I’m near evangelical about its virtues for everything from novel-writing to blog-touring to academic blah organizing. (Yes, my academic blahs need to be organized.)

But there’s something that … Read more

The husband and I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, and it has sparked lots of good conversation about our priorities for the food we put onto our–and our son’s–plate. That’s a conversation … Read more

I’m in the middle of living something new: writing hungry.

I’ve always seen the idea of the starving artist as an unnecessary cliché, but I’m as close as I will likely ever be to living it. (I certainly hope this … Read more

A while ago I wrote about how Scrivener was the perfect tool for drafting a novel. I need to revise that statement. Scrivener is the best electronic tool. Why the qualification? Because ordinary paper always, always calls me back. 

Scrivener … Read more

I haven’t read it yet, but I plan to get my hands on a copy of the June 25 Time magazine because the cover story is close to my heart: the plight of young illegal immigrants who contribute in countless … Read more

After smooth flying and driving, we are finally “home” to the States–Texas for a bit before heading back to Indiana. Husband and I are nostalgic for Paris already, especially when we are eating out (“Look at the size of this … Read more

I am currently flying over the Atlantic (away from Paris and our 9-month adventure here), but in honor of the occasion, I have dredged up a poem I wrote in a writing workshop at Simon’s Rock College when I was … Read more