My Substack

For years, I neatly printed my list of deadlines on the tiny orange dry erase board that hangs above my desk. It was a checklist-at-a-glance. (I love lists.) But earlier this year, I realized something: I already had a day planner that detailed out my…

My husband and I have been having the same argument about Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles for 10 years. Yes, we are that nerdy. But not only is Hardy a pretty decent writer, he’s also the reason my husband and I met (really). It goes…

As a kid, I couldn’t hit, throw, kick, catch, or volley, and I didn’t understand how anyone ever knew what to do with the ball on a giant field or court where everyone is running. (I was a gymnast, so I knew exactly how to move my own body in space;…

Tomorrow marks the two-year anniversary of the death of my brother, Paul. So, it’s not a great week. But I also know that what happened this week two years ago set a new course for me, in a completely roundabout way. It’s complicated. And…

In graduate school, I learned to read fast and write big. I wrote dozens of papers for my graduate English seminars in my years at Miami University (of Ohio), but one stands out. Actually, I couldn’t tell you what the paper was about, because all that…