Bit by bit, I will be posting my short stories on Curious Fictions. Want a quick read? Try The Boy Who Played Air Guitar, originally published in Tales from the House Band. There’s a lot of really good stuff available on Curious Fictions. Check it out. And yes, I’m working on Sarah Tolerance and a new sekrit project, honestly.
I use the phrase “Perfect is the Enemy of Good” a lot, reminding myself that retooling a sentence or a paragraph can mash all the spontaneity and beauty right out… Read more Perfect is the Enemy of Wonderful →
So my daughter is getting married tomorrow afternoon. Outside (in December in Northern California, that means a balmy 40-50 degrees. The bridal party will wear parkas) at the home of… Read more Night of the Cake (or The Cake Also Rises) →
I sometimes wonder if I’ve done a dreadful, dreadful thing in raising my children to love many of the movies that my husband and I love. My younger daughter famously… Read more Communal Language: Movie Edition →
Back in the olden days, when I was 13 and we moved from Greenwich Village to rural Massachusetts, and long-distance phone calls were expensive–particularly calls made during the day–the way… Read more Being in Touch →
Anent nothing (or actually, anent a long, chewy series of Tweets by David Rothkopf about the way a certain class of people in our society–guess whom?* gets a pass for treating people badly–which the author calls Asshole Culture) I started thinking about M*A*S*H. Not the beloved TV show where many of the most despicable characters turn out to to be people who can learn not to be despicable (or are revealed to be secretly not despicable, etc.) and in which the remaining despicable people get their comeuppance before the end of… Read more Entitlement, or: No One Has Suffered as I Suffer →
I’m a coward. Let’s get that on the table first thing. I am not one of those heroines who stands up to a person in a rage and tells them off in some narratively satisfying way. My own personality, and early training, work against it. When I’m dealing with a volcanically angry person? I shut down. I get quiet and sort of “gone-to-my-own-private-island” absent until it’s over. It’s different if I see someone being bullied or harassed–but even then, my tendency is not to confront the bully but to take… Read more Writing Angry →
Come all you weary factory girls I’ll have you understand I’m going to leave the factory And return to my native land. … The Overseers need not… Read more The Factory Girl’s Song →
