I have to admit I had never heard of Vicky Beeching until yesterday. Then I saw a link to this article posted on Twitter, and I felt compelled to click through. And suddenly, all my problems seemed pretty small. Let’s try to put this in perspective. You are in your twenties, hugely famous among a […]
I’m a little behind on this one, not that that should surprise anyone. I needed a couple of days to figure out how I felt about Mr. Williams’s death. That just sounds weird, doesn’t it? Mr. Williams. My stuffy conventions aside, I doubt many of us ever called him that. He was Robin Williams, or […]
This woman’s bravery will inspire you. If you admire people who stand up for people who aren’t standing up for themselves. If you admire people who are just crazy enough to step in front of drunk people twice their size and tell them to stop. If you admire people who have the fortitude to take […]
Hat tip to Jeff Goins, who posted this on his Twitter feed this afternoon: How to create inspiration: place butt in chair. It was exactly what I needed to hear today. See, I came up with some great ideas this weekend: all about how to grow this blog, how to tie it in with my […]
A Father’s Letter to Young Women (About Getting Naked) | UnTangled. I have a tween daughter. Which means many places on the Internet, where women and girls are presented as nothing more than objects of lust presented for men’s entertainment, terrify me. And it’s not just the Internet. So many places these days, we see […]
New Statesman | Let’s call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism. When I tagged this link for posting a few days ago, I wrote myself a note: I don’t know what to do with this, but it scares me to think about writing about it. That probably means I should do something […]
I can’t quote a single line of her poetry. All I know of her work is the multitude of beautiful, inspiring quotes anyone can find online. But she was undeniably a woman of great courage. A woman whose words shaped our lives for decades, and will continue to do so for decades more. We’ll miss […]
There are more than a million of them, stretching back 239 years. Many, many more if we count those who came home broken and died earlier than they might have otherwise. I know a few of their names. So do you, I would guess. None of us knows all their names. Some are unknown entirely. […]
I haven’t felt very courageous lately. My book didn’t make the quarterfinals, but that wasn’t entirely surprising. A Square Foot of Calfskin was a long shot, just like every other book that entered that contest. If you’re interested, you can find the list of quarter-finalists here. No, failing is part of the game when you […]
I got the news today: A Square Foot of Calfskin has made it to Round 2 of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. It’s no longer one of ten thousand–now it’s one of two thousand, among the four hundred books left in the YA category. The next round of judging ends on the 14th of […]