Blog & Reflections

I love writing fiction, but it’s a long ride from beginning to end, whether on the marathon of a novel or the sprint of a story. It’s a welcome change of pace to write a blog post or an essay exploring what’s on my mind. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, I review as a way of giving back to the reading and writing community. It requires honesty, fairness, and being responsible to both the author and the book’s potential audience. Reviews have reach; mine of Marilynne Robinson’s Lila first appeared in The Fiction Writers Review and is also anthologized in Contemporary Fiction by Women, Chelsea House Publishers.

Thanksgiving: A Love Story

Thanksgiving. Among tangible souvenirs of past holidays are handprint turkeys our kids made in kindergarten. The teacher (the only one the three had in common over the years) drew an outline of each student’s hand. The palm became the turkey’s body, the thumb its head, the fingers the feathers. Same general template, but each hand a little different, and each turkey further individualized by the Read more...

In to Denmark

The train from Malmö Central Station whisked us across the span of the Öresund Bridge. The Bron, eight kilometers long, carrying cars above and trains below, makes it easy and beautiful to cross the sound, the marine border between Sweden and Denmark. On fine days, sailboats dot sparkling water. We transferred to a local train in Copenhagen for a short ride through suburbs and countryside Read more...

Let Sleeping Dolls Lie

Gifts in our family are often rectangular and a couple inches thick. Gift-guessers have it easy. The surprise isn’t what it is — a book — but which it is. This past December, I received a gently pre-read biography, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright by Jean Nathan. Wright’s series of Lonely Doll books, published in the 1950s and Read more...

A Trail of Tears

A novelist, I welcome the compression of blogging. It’s nice to have a project I can get my mind around, one with a beginning, middle, and end. But finishing my previous columnabout the first leg of a recent trip with my daughter along a portion of the Civil Rights Trail in Alabama felt like self-interruption as much as relief. Now, for the first time in Read more...

Infuriating & Inspiring

“Join me in Birmingham after the April meeting,” my daughter suggested in January, knowing I’ve wanted to visit sites along the Civil Rights Heritage Trail there. I booked my ticket. Reading is as necessary as packing before a trip, and I started with Taylor Branch’s America in the King Years trilogy. The three volumes combined are 2,200 pages. I needed this epic to be portable, Read more...