Prose

I’m watching the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale, and I encourage everyone who can (it’s on Hulu) to join me.

Here’s the thing: this season spends some time chronicling the first intimations of change in what was, at the beginning, a world we recognize as our own. Suddenly there are more intrusive questions asked, women need a husband’s signature for birth control pills, identification as LGBTQ becomes, not illegal but … problematic. Read more about The Handmaid’s Tale - A Primer

With the likes of James Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty and Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury hitting the newsstands, all certainly worth the read, I was delightfully surprised to learn that the non-fiction book of 2018 is none other than Prairie Fires, t Read more about Little House

It’s not easy writing a novel. It’s even harder selling them. Read more about Selling the Book

Stuff I’m watching and reading, because I know you all want to know.

WATCHING

Winter Olympics: Because I like to watch people doing stuff in snow. Rooting for the Nigerian bobsled team, the Mongolians, and whoever wins one of those Iron Person extravaganzas.

Victoria: Because I’m a sucker for fictional British history and because it stars a Dr. Who Companion. Read more about Winter 2018

Every once in a while, when reading, I come across a sentence that almost takes my breath away with its simple, descriptive words that open my eyes to a world. Read more about A Few Favorite Sentences

What was it like to be an American colonist in the 17th and 18th centuries, living under the rule of Great Britain? Read more about Colonial America

I once read that dreaming of houses means that you are searching for the right one, for your proper place in the world, for, like Goldilocks, the place that's "just right." Read more about House Hunting

gets written. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing today. Not a whole novel, but editing one I’ve already finished. My third. It’s almost ready for its close-up. There are just a very few more lines to double-check. I’ll have it done before close of business tomorrow. Read more about How a Novel

One of the stories I sometimes tell involves a date, one date, I went on back in 1968, He was a black photographer with NBC news that I had met at an Operation Breadbasket meeting. I was in my early 20’s, and dumb as they come. We were chatting politely over dinner about this and that, when he said something about how white folks were always making themselves out to be the descendants of some kind of European royalty. Read more about White Trash

These are two of my favorite takeaways from Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind.

On Gossip: Read more about Gossip and Myth: Pillars of Civilization