HOW: ON WORKING, MOTHERING, AND GETTING YOUR WRITING DONE
After my daughter was born, I asked every working mother I knew how working mothers got their writing done. One of my colleagues said, “Write while your daughter’s small? You won’t.” Then, when she saw the panicked look on my face, she added drily, “Did you want me to...
AUDIO RUCKUS OR: HOW I LEARNED TO QUIT WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOOK PUBLISHED FOUR YEARS BEFORE
I’m still thinking about a day last January when, at the request of my publisher, I spent the morning at a recording studio in downtown Minneapolis. There, I read my entire second book aloud as we taped what would become an audiobook version of The Alphabet Not Unlike the...
IN WHICH FIFTEEN YEARS’ WORTH OF WRITING JOURNALS ARE BURNED IN THE BACKYARD FIRE PIT
Yes, I did. And Marie Kondo had nothing to do with it. A few years ago, I had developed the distressing habit of crying every time I left on a trip. I welled up in the drivers’ seat as I turned the key in the ignition; I wept sitting on the tarmac (fellow passengers often...
THE ONLY THREE REASONS WRITERS SHOULD RECEIVE MEDALS
John Updike, on accepting the MacDowell medal in 1981: “One, they do, in becoming writers, dare to go it alone in a world in which most of us have developed secure links to some part of the corporate governmental power structure . . . . Secondly, they do dare to play, to remain...
Writing matters. But it is only part of my life. The rest of the time, I work at being a parent, teacher, wife, citizen, and friend. I think a lot about what makes a writing life possible, and what makes life meaningful enough to be worth writing about.