Permission Granted

This is a Wild Writing piece inspired by the poem, Permission Granted, by David Allen Sullivan.           Yes, you have permission to refuse the rest of the red velvet cake your Mother wants you to pack up and take with you on your 300-mile drive...

The Gift of Sadness

If you’re a parent, you know how painful it is when your child is sad. What’s the saying? You’re only as happy as your most unhappy child. So when my daughter came home from the first few weeks of the 10th grade this year in tears because she didn’t connect with any...

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...