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March 27, 2020On Emergency Landings
A few years ago, I boarded a crowded plane to Asia. As I reached my aisle seat, I was dismayed to notice that the guy next to me had his arm all over our shared armrest, spilling over to my side. He was ...
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November 14, 2018On Fairy Tales
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…[w]e look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition ...
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April 07, 2016On Fallout: an Interview with Michael Lista About "the Shock Absorber"
Please note the views and opinions expressed by writers in the Open Book writer-in-residence program are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Open Book, its staff or contributors__________________________________________________________________________When ...
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March 12, 2020On Family Secrets
Why does my writing tend to focus on family secrets? In particular, on children trying to unearth secrets tied to their parents’ pasts? I’m often asked these questions during interviews. The first ...
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March 25, 2024On Finding Inspiration Through Deconstruction
In my last column, I talked about the unexpected rewards of returning to the same themes and subject matter in your work. But there’s a related facet to this that I feel deserves its own examination—the ...
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July 02, 2015
On Getting My First Novel into Print
My first novel, Eulogy, has just been published.What has the experience been like?Well, it only took eleven years, so I guess it wasn’t too bad. Things could have been far worse: I could have never ...
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March 08, 2021On Giving Myself Permission Not to Write
I know I have to write it. The essay I’ve been trying to write for a year and a half.I will be in the grocery store or out in the muck of a hike dripping with sweat and a sentence of it will come to ...
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October 25, 2022On Giving Yourself Room to Change (Or, Eros the Bittersweet)
A few months ago, I talked to someone on the phone. I didn’t know this person well and though I’d seen them over Zoom somewhat regularly for our work together, I never really noticed them too much. ...
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June 27, 2019On Hanging Laundry
I have an obsession with laundry hung on lines. The image literally stops me in my tracks. There’s so much thought put into the way the sleeves of shirts are pinned just close enough to the hem of a ...
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March 05, 2020On Illness
When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. It was my ballet teacher who first noticed that something was amiss; I could see it in the curiosity and concern that splashed ...
