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My top 12 for 2017
Everywhere you turn this time of year you find a top this-or-that list: books, movies, political disasters. I wasn’t thinking about lists or the new year when I sat down a few days ago for my morning...
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Now to lighten the mood
With everything going on in the world these days, I recently felt the need for some light entertainment. That’s when my publisher sent me a first proof of What Remains Unsaid. After I finished jumping...
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In pursuit of unbounded possibility
EXT. – DINER – EARLY MORNING The camera moves across a parking lot with big sky in the background and sunrise clouds, toward a diner with a plate glass window. Through the slightly misted window we see...
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From You to all of us
Pity the poor Second Person. The name alone is enough to puncture its self-esteem. Second fiddle, second best, second rate. No wonder this voice in literature gets no respect. Actually, it gets less...
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Let you be the judge of you
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” —Elisabeth...
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Talk to your inner chicken
Four writers sat around a table, commiserating. “I write a lot about what I’m going to write. I have pages and pages of notes.” “I have so many ideas… but I just can’t get started.” “The story I end up...
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Do you doubt? I do
I never considered myself to be someone who has a problem being vulnerable. After all, I put myself out there every day—as an editor, a speaker, a teacher, a birth doula, a parent. But my...
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Join me to march for art
On April 22, I marched for science in San Francisco along with an estimated 15,000 in that city. More than 600 marches were planned worldwide, though I couldn’t find after-the-fact estimates of total...
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5 things you never wanted to know about me
The five things I’ll make this quick, because I’m kinda fried. I snore, which I would be doing in the photo above if it weren’t an awkwardly posed selfie. I dislike emptying the dishwasher but try to...
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Where do stories come from?
When I was searching for an upstate New York setting for my new novel, What Remains Unsaid, I couldn’t find the perfect town. So I made one up. I grew up in a small—very small—town. One traffic light,...
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A weekend among the book people
I spent this past weekend on my feet talking about What Remains Unsaid to anyone who walked by. That’s not as weird as it sounds, since I was at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California along...
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Grammar can save the world
“Some English that might strive thine ear to please” — John Keats, Sonnet to Spenser I recently spent a week being paid to care very much that tenses agreed and singular nouns did not precede plural...
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Leave your garret and come to my party
Being a writer can be hard sometimes. All alone in your garret, scribbling away. Not to mention the often depressing news about how hard it is to make a living in this business. That’s why I’m having a...
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Astronomical diversions will eclipse you
If you were expecting information about Monday’s solar eclipse, you will be partially disappointed. I won’t be in the path of totality so I can’t give you 100 percent. You’ll have to settle for 76....
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Telling the story about the story
A friend approaches an author at a party. “So, what’s your new book about?” The author swirls the wine in her glass, takes a deep breath, and begins. “Well, there’s this woman, see, and she’s being...
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Make your voice heard in a noisy world
I’ve been thinking about voices a lot lately, maybe because there are so many of them in the world, speaking so loudly and all at once, and only occasionally saying anything worth hearing. The singer...
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