Writing

I follow a bunch of Instagram accounts for real estate and decor. This morning, one of them posted a listing that absolutely melted my heart. It caught my eye because the house was beautiful, and [...]

The man, thirty-three years old, was living in perilous times. There was a war going on. Just the month before, the enemy had burned down several of his young country’s most symbolic [...]

NYC-area readers, come out to Strand Bookstore tonight for a panel on what it takes to get published. Led by the inimitable Susan Shapiro, who taught me what it would take to (finally!) publish [...]

I have had what most people would consider an intense life. I didn’t know it for a long time. For much of my youth, I often thought about how boring my life was, how I should jetset more, [...]

Late last winter, I received a certified letter. It was notice of an application for a variance on a property within 250 feet from my home. I live on a hill, on a quiet little dead end with a [...]

Naming children proved to be something of a challenge for me and my ex-husband. Even at the pinnacle of our relationship, compromise was hard. He wanted Greek and traditional. I wanted original [...]

These are dark, dark days in our democracy. An infantile madman’s finger is twitching by the pardon pen to wipe away the rightful consequences of his crony’s actions. The same lunatic [...]

It was great to be invited for an interview at RVN TV to talk about the upcoming Collingswood Book Festival, where I’ll be appearing, along with a ton of awesome authors. I come in at the [...]

In the early 90s, I belonged to one of those book clubs that shipped you books every month if you didn’t tell them not to. Their business model depended on people like me, lazy people who [...]

Hurry up. Finish work. The kids will be asking what’s for dinner. The wheel is turning So run faster. Except… no. It’s just echoes now. Do we have pens/loose [...]

Full disclosure: this phrase is kicking around my head lately because my son made one request for his birthday celebration: that we watch one of the Lord of the Rings movies with him. There I [...]

It is said that mothers shouldn’t play favorites, not even cat mothers. If that’s the case, I am probably a bad mother. And, well, maybe something of a crazy cat lady. When it became [...]

The other day, I was flummoxed by this suggestion: describe yourself not in relationship to anyone else, or to what you do. I thought. Hmm. The first descriptors that came to mind were out: [...]

These have been a tough few weeks for me. Heck, things haven’t felt right since 2015, when the carnival atmosphere of the election kicked into gear and got progressively, excruciatingly darker as [...]

It is an impossibly, heartbreakingly, stunningly gorgeous day. I am called to words as the devoted are called to song. In worship. In awe. Renewed, and made whole again by a thick blue sky, a [...]

If you’re a regular reader, you may know I’ve been despairing about everything the migrant crisis at our border means: childhood trauma with lifelong consequences, pain, and a [...]

When I was a kid and first exposed to Anne Frank’s diary, my first glimpse into the horrors of the Holocaust, everything seemed really cut and dried. Of course Miep and the others would [...]

NorthJersey.com, part of the USA Today network, wrote up a piece about the “Borders of the Heart” event this past Wednesday. Great info about some of the other writers who read. Click here.

Honored to be included among such awesome company in BestofNJ.com’s 10 Summer Beach Reads from New Jersey Authors. Click here to find your next summer read.

I have watched the coverage of the children separated at the border from their families like many of you have: in shock, pain and disbelief. For me, the feeling has had another layer over it: [...]

My friend and fellow writer Celeste Pewter has compiled one of the most comprehensive lists on how you can help children being separated from their parents at the border. Click here to read it. [...]

I am not a purse person. I carry my wallet and my phone in the back pocket of my jeans when possible, and only begrudgingly drag around a bag when only absolutely unavoidable. Still, I too have [...]

An emotional weekend, which perhaps I’ll write about one day soon. When I wrote an email about my thoughts to a writer friend, she shared the following sonnet. Today, I’ll let Edna [...]

I am afraid to die. To be honest, I find anyone who isn’t a little suspect. The annihilation of everything you are, snuffed for eternity? Holy smokes. If there is anything more profoundly [...]

When I used to have to park my car in the street, I collected parking tickets by the boatload. They were cheap at the time – $15 or so, as I recall – but I’d let them fester, [...]

You don’t know what it took to get here. You can’t know. My parents crossed the border so I could cross the stage. But you call them illegals. You sit in your comfortable chair, and [...]

I’ve been swimming in the past lately. Last week was my 30th high school reunion. Last night I went out to dinner with an old high school friend who couldn’t make the reunion and who [...]

I had two teachers who changed my life: one was my high school English teacher, who had such an exuberant, quirky way of bringing literature to life (think: teaching Grendel with puppets to [...]

Yesterday, I found myself recounting the plot of Legends of the Fall to my boyfriend in exacting detail. For the uninitiated, Legends of the Fall is a Brad Pitt movie from the early 90s (based on [...]

One of my favorite parts of doing what I do is meeting the next generation of leaders, thinkers, writers, and doers. School visits help remind me of the great pool of talent, hope and inspiration [...]