Get Inside

I’m wondering if students have trouble learning to take chances in their writing, or if a sense of adventure is worn out of them (by which I mean it may be taught out of them).
Today I covered a friend’s writing class. She told me what they’ve been doing and let me decide how I would [...]

Final Tasks

Keith built his coffin when he was still in his 20s. He made it from pine and stained it. On the lid, he carved, “Those who truly love will never die.” For about 20 years, it stood in the dining room, serving as a place to store poetry books. After Keith suffered a stroke and [...]

I Am a Diva and You Will Address Me with Respect

An elderly man walks toward me in the hall near my office. He points at the closed door across the hall from mine.
“Men’s?” he asks, then he points to the open door, which leads to my office? “Women’s?”
His voice is husky but pitched kind of high, the way Lucy Ricardo sounds when she pretends [...]

Blank Space

A friend of mine died yesterday. The shock began to wear off this morning when I went through my bank’s drive-thru. The teller smiled as she greeted me, processed my transaction, and wished me a good day. “You, too,” I said, as I usually do when a retail or service worker says something like that. [...]

Blinky, Smiley Pundits

A few years ago, I got to see and hear Tony Kushner in person. He is a gentle, polite human being offstage, and a ferocious, intelligent persona on stage. He offered an observation that has kept me thinking for these years. He said that art is not activism. In that moment, I agreed and disagreed, [...]