LitHub: My Year of Smoke
I wrote an essay for Literary Hub. It’s about the California wildfires, Climate Change, and the writing of Frankenstein. Excerpt: The campground in Oregon is foggy in the morning. The air is soft and clean. I walk out of my…
Category Essays
Essay in Ploughshares: Student Debt and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
I wrote an essay for Ploughshares on Student Debt and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the novel written by Betty Smith. It looks at the difficulty of paying for school, both now, and in Smith’s time. Things have changed, but…
Essay In The Washington Post
I wrote an essay for The Washington Post! It’s about how becoming a mother has made me a better writer. A sample: Throughout my pregnancy, I weathered comments about how difficult writing would soon become, all while obsessing about how…
Superstition Review: On Sondheim and Whether Lyrics Are Poetry
Over at the Superstition Review, check out my essay On Sondheim and Whether Lyrics Are Poetry. I wrote about why I don’t think Bob Dylan should have won a Nobel Prize in Literature, using Sondheim–another great storyteller through lyrics and…
The Atlantic: Should Literary Journals Charge Writers Just to Read Their Work?
I’m excited to share an article I wrote for The Atlantic on literary journal reading fees. It looks into whether literary journals should charge writers fees to submit their writing, an important issue that needs more discussion. Check out: Should…
Essay In Los Angeles Review
I have an essay in the Spring 2014 issue of The Los Angeles Review. It’s called “On Shaping A Reader.” It’s about my thoughts on directing my son Gideon’s reading, and how certain books–Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, etc–profoundly…
Guest Post At S[R] Blog
I wrote a guest blog post at Superstition Review’s s[r] blog about getting stuck on writing fiction. Here’s a sample: Lately, I’ve been getting stuck while writing short stories. I’ll be working on a promising idea with a good set-up…