Essays

I did not really know what it meant to be a mother until I became one two years ago. And what I learned, in those first desperate weeks, was that…

I have a predilection for things that stack. Stacks of mail, stacks of paper in an inbox, stacks of The New Yorker waiting (and waiting) to be read, stacks of…

I took to the art of writing instinctively. The art of mothering has come harder to me. And for many years, these two activities — one introverted, the other extroverted;…

My husband recently made an inordinate sum of money in twenty minutes. He and a colleague with whom he wrote a book spoke at a conference in a nearby city,…

The journey from laundry to literature is as courageous an expedition as any taken by any adventurer. It’s not just the laundry of course. It’s the lack of clean laundry,…

I traced my fingertips over the envelope bearing my name as we sat in the car on our way to run errands. Key turned in the ignition, engine warming, my…

I write in the shower. For me, writing is less a physical act with pen and paper, and more about stolen moments of mental space. Those moments are few and…

Last August, as my twelve-year marriage was falling apart, I went looking for the Little Witch books by Deborah Hautzig. I’d had witches on the brain lately. In her summer…

The night before my daughter started kindergarten, I had a nightmare, not about playground bullies, unsympathetic teachers, or empty nest syndrome. It was the day before her first day of…

I stare at the words in my mother’s book and steady the wooden swing so that I can read them one more time. Above me a live oak tree sheds…

When one begins to research the idea of adopting a child that is not an infant, some frightening things come onto the scene quickly. In my notebook, I scribble “attachment…