Early in August, Martha Beck wrote a column about getting rid of stuff. Since I’d been madly tearing through my house, dumping books and old clothes into bags, and tossing them in the car for delivery to Goodwill, I paid attention. In her article, she raved about how helpful her Pray Rain Journal had been....Read More

Maybe it’s the heat (multiple days of 90+ temperatures), maybe it’s the nasty cold I caught last week—but I woke up thinking about driving in the snow. When blinding snow surrounds the car, limiting vision, I am forced to be in the present moment. There’s no other option. No longer able to see for miles,...Read More

Last week, I saw this sign when I dropped my daughter off at school: “What do you think it means?” I asked my ten year old. “Model for your children,” she mused. “It must mean put on a fashion show for them.” While I don’t think that was the message the principal had hoped to...Read More

I have spent a lot of time paging through various baby name books, looking for the perfect name for … the fictional characters I create. I’ve read that J. K. Rowling, author of the bestselling Harry Potter series, chose and created character names based on the meaning of root words in Latin, Greek, and French....Read More

Wednesday Writing Prompt: Boredom as Inspiration by Heather E. Schwartz I feel like I shouldn’t say this. But I’m going to anyway. I find myself really inspired by new writing ideas when I’m supposed to be paying attention to something else. This is most likely to happen during a class or at a lecture or...Read More

See those spent dandelions? That’s my front yard. Every day I return home from the gym and wonder when someone will mow down those darn things. Then I remembered how my children used to delight in dandelions. At first,  they were simply a bright yellow reminder that the days were getting longer and warmer. Later,...Read More

Last Saturday, I was out for a walk when I saw a man struggling with an empty poop bag. Somehow, the bag had ripped, and the man was trying to figure out how to make use of it. I happened to have two poop bags in my pocket, left over from a morning walk with...Read More

In honor of National Picture Book Writing Week, today’s prompt uses a favorite picture book of mine: Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Several years ago, I attended the summer writing institute, sponsored by the Milwaukee Writing Project. Our teachers used this book to teach us about the use of voice and point of...Read More

At 3, my son would shout Cinnamon Toast! whenever something went wrong. Cinnamon Toast was the perfect expletive—lots of syllables plus a hard consonant in the middle and end. For years, our family has worked on coming up with creative ways to express frustration and anger. Instead of relying on the traditional expletives, we’ve created...Read More

Yesterday, while sitting in the chair at the hairdressers, I had plenty of time to contemplate the warning labels on her hair dryer and curling irons. Warning: Do not immerse in water. Warning: Do not leave plugged in. Warning: This product can burn you. Several years ago, I had the privilege to teach writing with...Read More