It Happened There The young woman in the old photo looks serene. She gazes at the camera, dark eyes unflinching, full lips closed but relaxed, nose distinguished, hair pulled back, perhaps in a bun, a wisp of curl escaping. She is more handsome than…
Dictionary of God Perhaps our role on this planet is not to worship God—but to create Him. …
Reading Michael Wolff’s account in The Hollywood Reporter about how he got access to the West Wing while writing Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House got me thinking about Lillian Ross, the longtime writer for The New Yorker, who died last fall…
People say you can’t teach talent, that not everybody has the ability to be the next Toni Morrison or F. Scott Fitzgerald, or someday play for the Cubs, or become a famous musician. And perhaps this is true. But if we stop trying to be an…
Close your eyes and imagine a writer. Where are they? What are they like? When I used to think of a writer, I would think of a person sitting at a mahogany desk, or maybe at a Parisian cafe, or maybe a really Brooklyn-esque cafe (you know,…
Getting Rid of the Get During my eleven years teaching seventh-grade English, the personal narrative essay was part of my state’s mandatory writing test. The prompts went something like this: Write about a time when you learned a new skill or Write about a…
The Professor’s Body Can fragility feel as hot as bravado? I think so, but sometimes struggle to find the way. —Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts The professor’s body sits cross-legged on the edge of the desk. Its head turns all round the semicircle to…