Category: general nonfiction

To new creative writers, the array of literary journals available can seem quite overwhelming, and I completely understand that. However, I'd encourage you to do the slow work of navigating this universe rather than hoping for a shortcut. Often new writers will ask, "Where do you think I should publish this piece?" and I'd like … Continue reading Doing the Work: Finding Places to Publish

for the week of November 6   Aries: Ok, so you  may have burned through almost all of your Facebook friends with fits of blocking and unfriending. It's been a rough few years: yes, this past one, but also the campaign. The thing is, some of those people you unfriended were bots, but others were … Continue reading Your Trumplandia Horoscope

Some anniversaries of loss come, for me, in a kind of anxious restlessness, where I'm churning far above my body, wondering why I feel so disconnected. Others come with the feeling of being pulled into a pit. In many cases, I'm not self-aware enough to really understand what motions my body and psyche are going … Continue reading Trauma Anniversary, Nov. 8

After my first book, Opa Nobody, was published, I suddenly realized there was a thing called post-publication book awards. I was in the flurry of trying to promote the book and therefore getting used to this foreign book-promotion world. I was also working full time, and, to make things complicated, I the mom of a … Continue reading Post-Publication Book Awards

Dear Sonya, I wanted to remind you that given the state of the nation and government, it’s totally normal to be super-depressed. The daily assaults on reason, fact, morality, and the future itself all seem to require a candle lit in the house of mourning. And you—while making your calls and going to rallies—have lit … Continue reading Letter to Myself, as a Depressed Person in These Times

  Though I am a Buddhist these days, I suppose nobody gets out of Catholicism easily--or ever. I was raised a Catholic, and I have been obsessed with the image of the Sacred Heart for as long as I can remember. The Sacred Heart is in my mind and heart now every day--it reminds me that … Continue reading Sacred Heart, Broken Heart

I am trying to knit myself back into a world that is not so much changed as noir. The contrast is way up, a black-and-white movie of the previous life. The villains belong to my childhood, so 1980s with their Cold War mentalities and their penchants for Reaganesque excess and their truly reprehensible hair. In some … Continue reading Sewing Myself Back to the Noir World, with a Peach Pit Under My Tongue