Archive for January 2019
Because (How In the World Did We Already Get to Seventeen?)
Dear Zoe and Talia, Somehow, your birthdays always sneak up on me. I know the date of your birth. I think about that date as Christmas comes and goes, as the New Year celebration waves goodbye, as we get back into the swing of things with school and extracurriculars. I have time, I always think…
Read MoreAn Interview with Jeanne Oates Estridge
Jeanne Oates Estridge began writing in third grade, when she crafted her first short story about bunnies who named their many children in alphabetical order. That same year, she drew a picture of her future self dressed “in a floor-length, crayon-blue dress, sitting at a typewriter.” It may have taken a bit of time, but…
Read MoreWhat I Realized
While I’m grateful that 2019 is behind us, I’m also grateful for the realizations I gained over the prior year. I’m listing them in no particular order. Acquaintance circles might stretch for miles, but the number of true friends a person has is very few. Using people is something that much of humanity…
Read MoreFinding My Voice
When I first began writing, my goal was mainly to share anecdotes about my day with the kids, or to keep record of something smart and pithy that one of them said. The act of writing served to lift me up, but it also made some of what I was doing more concrete. As time…
Read MoreEven More Words for the New Year 4
Each new year, I try to focus on a set of words to guide me through the next fifty-two weeks. Last year, I identified these words. What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Sadly, I promptly forgot those words. That’s not to say that I didn’t start new…
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