I am lucky to have a husband with the imagination to invent romantic, quirky new dates after more than six years of marriage. Last Friday, after an exceptionally long week, we went to Mancini's for a drink.

The full name of the place is Mancini's Char House and you can...

I was meeting an old friend for coffee on Thursday. She lives 30 miles west of Minneapolis; I live 10 miles east of St. Paul. We needed a spot that cut the driving for both of us. That's how we ended up at a Starbucks/Barnes & Noble in the Galleria,...

My ex-husband either couldn't or chose never to pay child support. Frankly, I've never quite known which.

He was in bad shape after our divorce, going through treatment for alcoholism on the state's dime and unemployed for the better part of a year. When unscrupulous movers stole everything I owned,...

I was in the locker room at my gym, wearing a towel and putting lotion on, when the phone rang. And because I recognized my book publicist's number -- despite the rules -- I picked it up.

She was excited and talking fast. "I'm sorry..." I said, moving toward a...

Seven years ago, I met a hard-drinking, meat-loving, motorcycle-racing Southern man and fell in love.

Oh, we had fun! And I needed it. I was a single mother of three, stringing my budget together with coupons and prayer. For as long as I could remember, every spare dime had gone...

I'm worried about the writers I used to know.

Two decades ago, I was wildly envious. At 26, I lived a pinched and frugal life in a shabby first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. I shopped at big-box grocery stores, washed my own car and rarely went on trips. If our family...

Since my new novel The Forever Marriage came out mid-June, I've had the same experience over and over -- in coffee shops and wine bars and over lunch tables, throughout the Midwest and the East Coast, with people I've known half my life and strangers I've only just...

The day I graduated with my MFA was one of the most discouraging of my life.

My divorce was finalized that morning. I spoke to a real estate agent about listing our house shortly after; there was no way I could stay and maintain it on my own. Built in...

Shortly after my first novel came out, I was invited to present at a book festival in Madison, Wisc.

Now, when you're a brand-new author with a book just out, you tend to be pathologically focused -- on reviews, media and interviews and why you're not...

Before we begin, if you're under 18, or one of my children (even if you're over 18), or one of my children's friends, or someone who works for me, or my Mom or Dad, you should stop reading and close your browser now.

I'm serious.

OK, now that...

We were at dinner with friends -- a couple we've known for years -- when the topic of monogamy came up.

Allow me to set the stage: He's 45 but looks, easily, 35. Of Spanish descent. An indisputably swarthy, handsome dude with a huge brain and the...

I have little interest in Mark Zuckerberg. What he wears, whose ideas he co-opted, whether he eats only animals he has killed. I was mostly bored by The Social Network. And I resisted Facebook until someone pointed out (correctly) that I was being ridiculous: Having a social media...

On the first morning of my honeymoon, I woke up at 6 a.m. to the alarm on my phone. I moved carefully, so as not to wake my brand-new husband (later, I would discover that herds of reindeer could dance on his sweetly snoring head). I rooted through our luggage...

When my son, Max, was 3, he had a job. He walked alongside his older brother and translated.

Andrew was 5 and clearly autistic. He didn't speak but rather made high-pitched sounds to indicate what he wanted. He was, that year, fixated on this set of objects: a length of...

If my evening news watching is any indication, impotence is very much on men's minds. There's a commercial for some cure at least once per half-hour of Brian Williams. These days it's a commercial for Cialis, the drug that provides a 36-hour window for "spontaneous" penetration, that runs around 5:52pm...

Last fall, on one of those cool, damp, spearmint-y mornings, I drove past a street corner where two small children danced.

The older had on new school clothes: stiff jeans and a striped t-shirt. He was wearing a backpack so disproportionately large, it looked like he might topple over if...

I'm that girl from high school. The one you barely remember. She was there for a while, always lurking uncomfortably. Perpetually defiant and alone. She disappeared at some point -- sophomore year, or maybe junior -- and you didn't really notice. Later, you heard a rumor that she'd killed herself...

In 1992, I was 25 years old. I had two small children and a household income of about $16,000 per year. And I weighed more than 200 pounds.

We were living in Duluth, Minn. Why we were living in Duluth is a story for another day, but we were. Winter...

I'd like to tell you how many rejections The Forever Marriage received. But, frankly, I lost count.

It was more than a year's worth anyway. And they came from all quarters -- editors who knew me and those who did not, big New York publishing giants and...

I prefer Starbucks.

There, I've said it. My shame is out there for the world to see. And I'm glad.

Coffee, I've found, is a very cultural thing. It's a badge that says something about us. My elderly parents, for instance? They're half-caf Folgers types. My mother buys enormous cans...