The Not-So-Distanced Past

I spent a recent Saturday in tears. The tears were of both varieties, the happy kind and the sad. I sat in front of my laptop, as my brother and sister-in-law shot me photos and videos from Nashville of the wedding of my only niece. Alyssa was as beautiful as a lily, in her lacy…

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The Stories of the Great Flu of 2019

We must use the lessons of history to save us. We must use them in practical terms and in artistic terms. Although it seems now that much of the leadership of our country is taking a hard line about “opening” schools and businesses, against scientific evidence of the dangers of too precipitate a return to…

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The Virtual Grandmother

Just you wait, said my friends. Wait until your older kids have kids. You will adore being a grandmother! It’s one of the best times of your life. Well, it isn’t, it’s not even close. But the reason why has nothing to do with the hardy, round-eyed and utterly engaging little guy born to my…

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Prose and the Pandemic

Inevitably, the topic for me and my students in the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing turned to the effect of life on art – most particularly, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the American social justice uprising on the creation of art. Our own virtual classroom, where we communicated as little faces…

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