The Story of You

“’I should have stayed at the dance.’” That’s what I was thinking as I sat in my friend’s car. The mood was tense. Julie had insisted on leaving the dance right after Homecoming Queen was announced. She hadn’t won like she’d hoped. I had.” These are...

Learning To Make Mistakes

“Why do you work so hard?” my friend Deb asked me the other day. “You seem like you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere.”  “I think I’m trying to get to a sense of rest,” I said. “Some place on the other side of...

Walking My Talk

The thing about being someone who promotes truth telling – on the page and off – is that when you’re not walking your talk you know it immediately and it’s hard not to feel like a big ol’ liar. Of course I’m being a little hard on myself; I’m human, I make...

Wheezing and Squealing

“So how many different fetal positions have you discovered?” my friend Jane asks as we set out for our evening walk. She’s smiling, but that’s because the sad ass year when she separated from her husband was over a decade ago. Now she can laugh. The thing about having...

Messy, Gorgeous Process

What if I told you that it took me ten years to understand what I was teaching? It looked like I was teaching people how to write, but what I was actually doing, I realized late in the game, was teaching writers how to peel away the layers of their story and dig for...

The Smallest Things

The note your ten-year-old writes you because she heard you crying in the bathtub. “Mommy, we love you very much. Who wouldn’t?” The way she comes in while you’re laying there in three inches of hot water; depleted, exhausted, alone, and how...