Blog

You Are Visiting The Library of Congress

If you walk into the public entrance of the Library of Congress expecting to gain access to the Main Reading Room, you will be sadly disappointed. The main entrance is for tourists and exhibits, and if you just want to sit and write in the reading room assisted by free federal wifi you first need to create the universe — or at… Read more →

The Writing Retreat From Hell; Or, A Completely Weird and Slightly Terrifying Adventure in Small Town New England

I’ve maybe never gotten writing retreats completely right. In collaboration with my dear friend, colleague, and occasional internet doppelgänger Marianne Kirby, I have tried more than once, but the writing has usually been somewhat less forthcoming than the local explorations, and the expansive and deliberate meals, the antique shops and the needless yarn purchases to add to the stack of… Read more →

This Is Me, Irrationally Feeling Like a Failure

When I left my job of nearly five years in January, I was anticipating all the free time I would have to dedicate to new creative ideas. My job had me working a lot of hours — more than full time, if I’m honest — and required a lot of emotional investment and near-constant stress, so creativity wasn’t something I’d… Read more →

You Don’t Have to Be Beautiful To Turn Me On

Sex confused me. It did many kids, in those shady years between sex being a vague idea spoken of in huddles of lowered voices on middle school playgrounds, and sex evolving into a real thing our peers were actually doing. The latter revelation struck my social clique possibly earlier than others: in the seventh grade, our group’s bouncy, pouf-banged leader was a… Read more →

The Passion of Miss Piggy: We Need More Multi-Dimensional Fat Women Characters in Film and TV

Miss Piggy is not a positive figure for self-acceptance because she demands and receives respect from her colleagues and the public at large; she is a positive figure because she doesn’t. She is a character who has to fight against the pressure to internalize the negativity that surrounds her; she refuses to allow the assumptions and aspersions of other people… Read more →