OKRA-HATERS! STOP MALIGNING A VEGETABLE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND OR HAVEN’T HAD COOKED RIGHT! OKRA-LOVERS! LEARN A NEW WAY TO ADORE THOSE GREEN PODS! EITHER WAY, DO IT QUICKLY, RIGHT NOW, BEFORE SUMMER DEFINITIVELY ENDS. (PLUS, TWO DON’T-MISS BOOKS, AN EXAMPLE OF YANKEE WTF-NESS, RACISM IN THE KITCHEN, AND THE QUESTION OF SLIMINESS, DEALT WITH ONCE AND FOR ALL) People who… 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
9 NOTES ON BUILDING A CREATIVE ECOSYSTEM, GLEANED FROM A WRITER’S FINAL BIRTHDAY PARTY
THERE IS NOTHING MORE SOLITARY THAN THE ACT OF WRITING. YET, NO WORK MAKES IT TO PUBLICATION IN SOLITUDE. MY LATE MOTHER’S LAST BIRTHDAY BROUGHT THIS HOME TO ME. THRIVING IN THIS SOLITARY PROFESSION TURNS OUT TO REQUIRE AN ECOSYSTEM. HERE’S HOW TO GROW YOURS. We celebrated my mother’s 97th birthday, her next-to-last, on the front porch of the home… Read More
Fearless Living
GROWING COMPASSION: SUICIDE, “SUICIDE WIDOWS” & THE ANTHONY BOURDAIN AFFECT
IF YOU’VE LOST A PARTNER TO SUICIDE, EXPECT TO REVISIT THAT PECULIARLY GUILT-TAINTED SORROW EVERY TIME A CELEBRITY EXITS LIFE BY HIS OR HER OWN HAND. MAYBE IT’S TIME TO GROW SOME COMPASSION, ALL AROUND. Anthony Bourdain’s suicide a year ago hit me hard. Perhaps this was partly because Bourdain and I work / worked peripherally in the same field,… Read More
