I dreaded Father’s Day as a child. Every year (during those far less aware days) we were asked to make a card for our father as a classroom project. My father died when I was nine, so from that day forward I made cards for my grandfather, embarrassed by my lack. I don’t know much about my … Read more
A parent’s tragedy will always influence the life of their children—often to an overwhelming degree. Writing fiction from the emotional truth of one’s past can be liberating and also confusing. How do writers use their past without being wedded to events as they happened? How do we write honestly, without spilling family secrets that … Read more
Perhaps every insatiable reader has a book so thoroughly imprinted at a vulnerable age, that they carry those characters like family of the heart forever. Some marked me for horror. IN COLD BLOOD assured I’d never stay alone in a country house. Others taught me about the awful mixes of fear, revulsion, and sadness we … Read more
I never met a book by Ruth Reichl I haven’t loved, and my adoration continued with this book. Where others were hearty meals, Not Becoming My Mother was a deceptively simple snack. (I’m certain that Ms. Reichl, former editor of Gourmet Magazine, would find a more elegant food analogy, but I, alas, am but a quick and … Read more
I had a visit from the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future this year—but unlike Scrooge’s rattling guys, my spirits crept in on the first night of Hanukkah. They told me I’d been whining about my unrequited crush on Santa for too many years. They told me it wasn’t him, but me. Yes, he’d … Read more