Jessica Keener

In the 1960s, a time of social restlessness and change, I was a teen growing up in a Boston suburb. Like many teenagers, I was part of a small clique -- mostly girls and a few boys. We went to the same classes, ate lunch together, and after school, we...

Since my father's passing in December 2010, and his wintry memorial in January in Boston, I've been waiting for spring's warmth and release. It came in this unexpected way.

We have a plant in our house. (A total of two plants because I have a red thumb, or whatever...

For three days I've been on my knees in the house of the Lord -- my house, that is --scrubbing, cleaning, waxing, sucking up dust that's claimed whole rooms while my mind's been far away, my heart in a trap. I'll get to where I've been in a moment.

An...

One spring when I was eight, and it was too cold to play outside, I came up with the stellar idea of playing poor orphans in my friend's attic. This meant we didn't have parents, or money for electricity, or heat. (In my real world, my family had a...

Recently, I spent a week in a two-bedroom cottage in southwestern Vermont. I'd rented this cottage once in the winter and was eager to return to the Mettowee Valley to see how the surrounding farms and meadows looked in the peak of spring. No longer submerged in snow, the Valley...

Our family fought a lot but one thing we agreed upon: we loved our brick Tudor house. Set on one half-acre of lawns, trees and gardens, my house on 14 Scarsdale Road was my kingdom, a place where I spent my entire childhood, where my father planned to...

Yesterday, I was walking in my old neighborhood in Newton, M.A., and I passed a house that I think of as "Ginny Hyde's house." It's a lovely wood shingle house with Dutch colonial lines. I knew this house as an 8-year-old child. The thing is, Ginny hasn't lived here for...

This excerpt is adapted from Jessica Keener's recently completed novel, Others Less Fortunate, a story about a daughter's coming of age in the wake of her mother's tragic death.

Others Less Fortunate

The morning of the funeral, a day streaked with elephant colored clouds, I stood in a small reception...

Sick of this heat? Pour yourself an iced drink and watch thriller writers, MJ Rose and JA Konrath, sweat it out this month as they race to see which marketing strategy--blogging or bookstores--will best sell their newest books.

International best-seller Rose opted for the virtual highway or blogging...