This, harvest-time, is my favorite time of year to go to the farmer’s market and garden-stands. It’s a cornucopia! Now, harvesting technically begins in spring, when the first asparagus tips poke up boldly through the still-cold soil. And harvesting goes wild in the summer, when cukes and zukes overwhelm us with their fecundity, when the okra, its pods pointing happily… Read More
Writing is work, play, the way I make much of my living. It's occasionally highly anxious-making, always surprising. I teach, and am constantly taught by, writing. Read More…
Nothing Is Wasted On the Writer
ANGELS, ARRIVING IN SNOW: A NON-CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS STORY
I NEVER BELIEVED IN SANTA CLAUS. NOT EVEN AS A KID, FOR REASONS I’LL MAKE CLEAR. BUT THE JURY IS STILL OUT ON ANGELS. If you want an inspirational, heartwarming story about Christmas, look elsewhere. I grew up the child of adamantly non-practicing Jews, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, then predominantly Irish-, Polish-, and Italian-Catholic. My mother, Charlotte Zolotow, used to… Read More
Fearless Living
TIDINGS OF DISCOMFORT
Our beloved partner is no longer on earth. And now it’s the holidays. Sometimes other people, not realizing they’re doing it, ask us to dress grief up in party clothes. We may even ask it of ourselves. But we don’t have to do it. In the fall of 2004, Richard, my friend Kay’s husband and the love of her life,… Read More
