Writing

THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY is just 10 reviews away from the “holy grail” of Amazon milestones: the 50-review mark. Legend has it that Amazon algorithms pay more attention to books with [...]

When I was around thirteen or fourteen, my father sat me down and said, “Things have been tough this year. There aren’t going to be a lot of presents this Christmas.” He [...]

The year was 1846. The potato blight wasn’t new; it had first started turning potato crops across Ireland to black mush during the harvest of 1845. But in 1845, it had blighted only about [...]

The news of Bob’s death found its way to me on Facebook. It was probably appropriate, although it felt not so much so. I hadn’t seen him in years, and dated him only a few times. But [...]

I am tired. My elbow has a weird rash I only get when my belly is not feeling quite right. I fall asleep shortly after 9:00 p.m., and wake up gasping at around 3:00 a.m. nearly every night, some [...]

Today, NaNoWriMo begins. (NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, an activity that many writers engage in in November, in which we aim to write 50,000 words in one month). It is 9:43 [...]

I’ve lucked out in a lot of ways, and one of the best ones is in the family I’ve been fortunate enough to land in. My kids are witty and awesome (but, of course, they’re my [...]

I feel like many of my recent posts have been sort of gloomy, which does not at all reflect how my day to day life is going. Life is good! My biggest problem, currently, is a band of masked [...]

There’s a quickening of my heart, trot to canter. I can’t quite tell what causes it. It could be anything, these days. Deportation forces carrying out round-ups, dark and quiet, [...]

A few days ago, Twitter erupted with the hashtag #metoo. It was meant to convey the sheer magnitude of the numbers of women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed, in solidarity with Harvey [...]

I write like a whisper. Hear me. The silence turns its back. I say one more thing. Nothing. We are bugs in a jar, each in our own. I can see your light but I cannot hear you. I try to scrawl out [...]

I didn’t like you when I first became aware of you. I was twenty-two, and you looked ancient to me at forty-five. (Ha). But not just ancient… grating. Presumptuous. Your husband was [...]

It will surprise no one to learn that I am passionate about books. I remember being four years old and sticking my nose in my parents’ gilt-edged Encyclopedia Britannica, inhaling its [...]

Searching through my phone for a picture to go with my piece on cemeteries (link below if you missed it), I came across a note I’d found on top of a tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New [...]

I once found a book at a bookstore which I simply had to have. The need to acquire it was a powerful and familiar feeling, a formless but imposing presence in the room which I feel often when I [...]

On the week that Trump announced he was ending DACA, I cried several times every day, sometimes in public. It hit me hard, and close, the death blow that only narrowly misses. I shook all week [...]

I’ve always been drawn to cemeteries. I have never found peace with death – spare me the treatises on why I should just accept it, I can’t and I won’t – and perhaps [...]

Color me tickled! The Barnes and Noble blog has always been good to THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY, but I was particularly jazzed by my latest mention there. My boyfriend’s daughter has turned me [...]

Imagine this: You are six months old. Your mother wraps you in a hand-knit blanket her sister gave you and heads off on a long trip. Maybe she’s hungry, tired of struggling. Maybe she fears her [...]

The jungle comes in for a hug on either side The people ahead of me outpace me Stretched long with good nutrition and a certainly they belong where they’ve been planted I have snuck myself [...]

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: I’m messy. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that messiness promotes creativity (don’t believe me? Link to the article [...]

A social media fast, that is. It began like this: my mornings usually begin with some CNN on in the background, occasionally muted so I can surf Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. When my squirrel [...]

I subscribe to Book Riot updates because they have awesome articles that keep me informed on what’s up in the book world and help my to-read pile get taller (not that I need any more help [...]

What are revenge queries? I am in the process of querying for my second agent. It feels a little like walking across the gym to ask someone to dance, plus a job interview, plus being covered in [...]

I had a great time at the first ever Maplewood South Orange Book Festival. I was fortunate enough to be on a panel called “Survival in the New World: The Immigrant Experience in Young Adult [...]

An author I greatly admire posted on social media earlier today. Her post was a picture of some flowers behind a wooden fence. Beyond it, far away and in a mild breeze, an American flag. The [...]

The 1970s TV version of Wonder Woman taught me a lot of things. It taught me that shiny fabric is fabulous. It introduced me to the wonders of a good pair of boots. But, coming as it did on the [...]

When my daughter was around ten, she walked home from school clutching a bright purple flower she’d picked from a neighbor’s front yard. “Can we get this?” she asked. She [...]

I’m excited to be participating in the Maplewood/South Orange Book Festival, and thrilled to invite you to my panel, “The Immigrant Experience in Young Adult Fiction,” featuring [...]

Today, a friend sent me pictures of a litter of kittens she’d found behind her garage. The implication was clear, although she was smart enough not to come out with it: one of these could [...]