She was the house
In the wake of Alice Munro’s departure, I was talking with some writer friends about her impact on us and our writing. I called up a…
There is a change ahead
The notice at the southern entrance to the Granville Street Bridge portends change ahead. “No Teardrops” the bulletin seems to instruct. I disregard the directive. My…
Mind the gap
I attended a workshop once—no, twice—with writer and poet Betsy Warland. As one of the exercises, Betsy asked us to sketch a public place where we…
This is not a bell
This is not a cowbell. It is a story wrapped in a linen shirt and carried from the old world into the new. It is origin.…
Coming out stories
The experience of being in and coming out of the closet,” Ash Beckham says, is universal: It’s scary, and we hate it, and it needs to…
Rosemary for remembrance
I pinched out the tips of my rosemary this morning to make the plant bush out, and now I’ll carry its fragrance through the day. This…
Things you can’t tell just by looking at her
I saw a movie once called Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her: five short stories about women’s interior struggles with loneliness, grief, dissatisfaction.…
Triple spirals: Magical, simple, complex
Chris and I loped up the hill toward the burial mound along with forty or fifty other tourists – T’s, as we referred to them, laughing…
Women marching across my memory
I’ve mentioned before that my dad had seven sisters. On International Women’s Day, they march across my memory: Maddie, Kay, Martha, Helen, Millie, Lou, and Madge.…
Marching orders
Were you ever handed something you couldn’t help but take as marching orders? You know what I’m getting at, right? It’s like that moment in Mission: Impossible when…