Check out this guest post I did on women writers of the Caribbean for Color Online. Read the post and then cruise around the site to find amazing resources and perspectives.

Full disclosure: I’m one of those people who obsessively looks up every little reference in a novel. In the old days, this meant (gasp) looking at the footnotes and using actual reference books. The Internet has made this much, much … Read more

I’m a big fan of the building-on-your-strengths school of thought. I can expend energy trying to be someone I’m not (e.g., a humorist), or I can put that energy to work in a direction that’s natural for me. But when … Read more

Possibly I have given the impression that my days teaching in Houston were nothing but hard work and success. This is what happens when you tell about challening experiences through the blessed buffer of years. In fact, though, this page … Read more

You’ve seen them around, those super cool clouds of most frequent words in a text. Maybe you saw the ones that were floating around after the most recent state of the union speech. See word clouds for a number of … Read more

This is a rant. So forgive me for putting aside my usual lovable self to be a horrible cranky pants.  I think I’d be forced to either quit writing or disown “The Road Not Taken” if I were Robert Frost. … Read more

Hey, today head over to The Book Muncher to check out my guest post on how knowing my audience helps me write. Also, check out my responses to Rachael’s random questions. You’ll learn about my (secret?) obsession, the strangest thing … Read more

What I’m about to say is going to make some people uncomfortable, so I might as well get it over with: teenagers are sexual beings.

Now, I’m not saying that teenagers are ready to have sex or should have sex. … Read more

If you haven’t been over to Tayari Jones’s blog, you’re missing out. I haven’t gotten to read her novels yet, although they’re on my read-after-PhD-exams list. But it seems like just about every time I stop by her blog, … Read more

By now I’ve probably said this in a dozen different places, but here goes again: I wrote What Can’t Wait for my students in Houston. Last weekend, they came out in full force for my booksigning. They rocked my world … Read more