Blog
New work for spring 2020!
I'm really excited to announce that I've got some short fiction due to be published shortly, both stories that I wrote in a fall 2020 writing workshop. There's nothing quite like being in a class full of talented people, reading great and interesting work, to motivate...
WriteMentor? Yep.
So . . . I'm serving as a mentor this year for #WriteMentor. Woohoo! So, first things first: welcome, potential mentorees! This is going to be a fun process, and I'm excited to find a great story and a great writer through this initiative. You might want me for your...
In My Ample Free Time
I never really thought of myself as an academic. I mean, I was on the 20-year plan for my Bachelors degree. As much as I love learning and studying and researching, it never occurred to me that more school might be in my future. But on my birthday this year I learned...
It Goes Boom
New obsessions hit me regularly--bits of stories I hear, scenes that play out in front of me. Right now I can't stop thinking about the Halifax Explosion. I blame the weekend trip I just took to Halifax, coupled with a visit to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and...
Seal of Approval
It's not often that I'm in the position to help out a fellow writer. However, today is one of those days--I was able to offer a blurb for a really great book of short stories that's coming out in October 2016. Kait Heacock's short story collection, Siblings and Other...
Lisbon: The Basics
A few days before I left for Lisbon, Portugal, I started wondering whether I should have chosen an alternate location for vacation. I didn't know much about the culture of Portugal, and I had only learned a small bit of Portuguese. Weirdly, it's something that happens...
Your Heart, As It Was Then, Will Be On Fire
It seems like ages ago now that The Trajectory of Dreams was published, but this morning that's all I can think of. An article on NPR talked about the "unexpected revival" of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, a poet whose work I used in my novel (along with Ilya Kutik). I...
Reading Iceland
My husband and I will be in Iceland in five short weeks. While I'm excited to (I hope) see the Northern Lights and go on a glacier hike, there's something really fascinating about Iceland's literary scene that I'm looking forward to seeing first-hand. Apparently, one...
Embracing Porteños: Buenos Aires
I emerged from Ezeiza International Airport this past Saturday into blissfully cool air. Philadelphia, when I left, was nearly tropical, but Buenos Aires weather reminded me of an early spring day. The woman from the booth where I arranged transport into the city...
Sleepytime
Sleep and I have a funny relationship. Like everyone else, I love to sleep, but it also makes me a little nervous. Part of it is the concept of dreaming (don't tell me Freddy Kreuger doesn't pop into your head sometimes), part of it is the idea of being unconscious...
That white male writers are most often reviewed and wind up winning awards and find themselves on "best of" and "summer reading" lists at places like the New York Times (NYT) is no surprise. It is and has been a white man's world in many respects for a very long time,...
Off to the Twitter Wars: Communications vs Sales
The Internets are all a-buzz with news of Twitter's terrible earnings, predicting the end of Twitter. Maybe no and maybe so. Surely, we've all been hearing the same about Facebook since its IPO in 2012 (and even long before that). Social media popularity ebbs and...
