The calendar on the wall near the front door said it was late May. The kudzu on the mountain behind the café was as thick and as luxurious as could ...
Every kid in the neighborhood wanted this new squirt gun. It was definitely cool. It was green plastic, in the shape of brass knuckles. The water sup...
Like many teachers, I pitch poetry around my classroom precariously, like it's an egg toss at a child's birthday party. I don't want to drop it, turn it, or spend too long holding on to it.
She sits crossed legged; her camel hair slacks have stains on them. Her hair floats in old lady wisps on her skull, which is prominent. My mother we...
It all started at Ron Mercer's retirement party. I had been sitting on a barstool at the Rosewood Inn with Mary, my best friend and co-worker, watchin...
Spring arrived; it's about time! The snow is gone and it's time for sunny days and warm nights. Sadly, on this day, April 1, 2013 the weather was not...
As it turned out, the baby created itself without permission from either of them, announcing its existence in subtle ways after they returned from the...
Early reader? Let's just say that had the word had currency in the L.A. of the Fifties, I'd have been the girl with the big dictionary on her lap trying to find "dyslexia." Since I couldn't read it'd never have occurred to me that I'd become a writer.
Moyra Kincaid's bantam cock, Apollo, greets the dawn every morning with a cry far bigger than one would expect from such a little bird. On her eighth...
Marquessa was a woman so unique that as she walked down Via Regina Margherita to the subway station, each man's head rotated in her direction; eyes fo...
Darkness surrounded the ranch buildings. From within the house a lantern's feeble light shone through an open door and window. In this late hour the l...
It was the tingly glow of that December morning that awoke him from his daydream in his seat on a bus going to work. Oblivious to the others who were ...
A warning first: There will be no high-school essayist's hunt for symbols (the green light of Daisy's dock, Dr. Eckleburg's big eyes that see all).
You should always carry a notebook to capture what most needs remembering so that, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you'll never be without good reading mat...
"Well, of course, you can read," my father said. It was two days after my tonsillectomy and the boredom of my sickroom led to this discovery. He barel...
When that eureka moment hits you though, what happens next? That huge PDF file on your computer isn't going to leap out and sell itself. You have to know how to put it out to your audience and go through the steps you need to take to get it ready for consumption.
Clamped on the steering wheel, one hand is at noon, the other at six, and with a flick of the wrists you veer left off Old Grove onto Georgia Hill Road.
He touched me. Not in any way lascivious or anything. Just a simple soft brush across and down my shoulder in acknowledgement that he had seen me. No words were spoken. Just the touch. I loved him for that. I always had...
My kids are independent and have learned to do their homework on their own. But I had to step in recently to help my middle schooler with a term paper that needed a lot of help. I started with my red pen, crossing out sentences and circling misspelled words. Needless to say, it didn't go well.
In this part of the country, winter had a way of sneaking up on one, killing the light, freezing the air and blanketing the naked trees in a leaden sh...
For at least 1500 years, clans of reindeer-herding and reindeer-following people roamed up and down the Yamal peninsula of northwestern Siberia, relat...
Hello Henry, is that you? Sorry, the sign-up sheet said you were six and you don't quite look... well, it's just those teeth. No, no, no, not a proble...
Donald Davis, Carmen Deedy, Diane Ferlatte, Michael Reno, Harrell, Bill Lemp, John McCutcheon and Motoko of Japan are just a few of the acclaimed stor...
It's Monday, April 15th at 2:20 p.m. It's a somewhat sunny Marathon Monday. I'm walking over to meet my close friend, Ann. We're supposed to be walking over to the Copley area in about 10 minutes.
-1- Helen Isabel Waldenschmidt was dead, and she didn't look like herself. Her face was as yellow as chicken skin fresh from the freezer. Circus ...
