Red Room

By Deborah Lindquist

It's not just a white dress anymore. Wedding dresses are inspired by the uniquely beautiful women who wear them.

Today, women are making new and different choices in what they choose to wear for the most romantic day of their life, their wedding ceremony. While the...

By Eric A. Olsen

Maybe you remember the speech President Obama gave in Kansas last December, the one about innovation, how he went on and on about how the world is shifting "to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America." I was reminded of it Sunday morning,...

By Alice Randall

Black history is not just politics and arts and athletics -- it is also sweet potatoes and peanuts. It's taste and bellies and bodies. It's all the recipes for survival that appear in cookbooks written by Black American authors.

My daughter and I share a cookbook collection...

By Suzie Moldavon

Feeling beautiful on the outside makes most of us feel more confident on the inside, and confidence is sexy! The best thing about a new year is that it allows us to hit the reset button and improve upon things that might have waned as our busy...

By Zoe FitzGerald Carter

It took crashing the car while texting for my college freshman daughter to start being nice to me again. It happened three weeks into her five-week Christmas vacation, a period characterized by carelessness and defiance on her part and irritation on mine.

From the start,...

By Sherry Jones

Here's a question for all those folks who say to me, "I want to write, but I can't find the time." What do you expect from me? Sympathy? Hand-holding? A motivational speech?

Remember Danny DeVito as Owen in Throw Momma From the Train? "A writer writes," was...

What makes you blush? A text from your lover, a glance, a touch, a passionate kiss? The excitement, mystery, and romance is all part of falling in love. And Valentine's Day -- indeed all of February -- is for lovers. Here are my ideas for putting love (and the color...

I've been covering all-things spa since the mid-1990s after a memorable first-time experience at a destination spa. People go to spas for many reasons. And while the experience can be all touch-feely, it can also be life changing, not to mention costly. Getting the most out of your experience is...

By Veronica Rhodes

My daughter was on the floor, arms raised in self-defense, as the two boys stood over her with baseball bats.

Did your blood run cold just reading a description of that scene? Mine certainly did when I walked in on it -- even though the bats were...

By Jessica Anya Blau

When David asked me to marry him, I said, "Yes, as long as we don't have a wedding."

Although I enjoy other people's weddings (I watched for hours when Kate and Wills married, eagerly awaiting the kiss), I've never wanted one myself....

By Jacqueline Winspear

A bit of a spat blew up this week, when noted historian, Simon Schama, took aim at the enormously successful British TV series Downton Abbey. Schama is, as you may know, originally from that scepter'd isle, and doesn't like what he's seen of Julian Fellowes'...

By Donna Ballman

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Wednesday on the so-called "ministerial exemption" to employment discrimination laws on Wednesday, finding that churches are allowed to discriminate. The exemption is something you won't find in Title VII or other discrimination laws, but is purely a creation of the...

If I were a camel, I would have surely buckled under that slender straw, which took the form of a nail file. Searching my bedside table drawer for the six-inch metal instrument, rifling through paraphernalia such as dog-eared business cards, highlighters of every hue, numerous white packets stamped "extra buttons,"...

It's easy to get caught in the day-to-day stresses of life. Trying to juggle too much and accomplish everything that we expect of ourselves, or even what others expect of us, can lead to anxiety, stress and general malaise.

Sometimes just making small changes in the way we approach...

By Samina Ali

I swear I heard an audible sigh of relief from one distinct group of viewers as The Learning Channel aired the season finale of All-American Muslim on Sunday evening.

Anyone following the controversy surrounding this show might assume I'm speaking of the Florida Family Association, which claimed...

By Donna Ballman

Did you hear the one where the Republican contender for president said we ought to repeal child labor laws? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but if you weren't paying attention due to all the holiday parties, you might have missed Newt Gingrich's...

By Deborah Lindquist

I overheard a woman at a dinner party once say, "Put it on the table, I'll deal with it later." And while we may have said that very thing ourselves this holiday season, as we shared our social selves with friends, family, food, libations, we may now...

The following dispatch is by Stacey Wolf

There is more travel lit about Paris than virtually any other city on Earth. But there's so much more to the City of Light than the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Let this true Francophile give you the insider's scoop: From...

By Sherry Jones

After finishing my novel Four Sisters, All Queens, I did what most writers of historical fiction seem to do: started thinking of ideas for blog posts about my characters.

I came up with a list as long as my arm -- I'm an idea person -- but...

By Samina Ali

I agree with leading Islamophobes that TLC's new reality show "All-American Muslim" isn't entirely harmless. Set in Dearborn, Michigan, the 8-part series follows five American Muslim families as they get married, start businesses and play football.

What's so harmful about that? According to the...