Rekindle
I Was a Seventh-Grade Book Censor
“Through books, the best parts of me could breathe and be seen. No boy was going to fuck that up for me.”
Looking for Anne of Green Gables
A fan-pilgrim expects to find a special world, a sense of belonging. I just wasn’t sure what I’d find on Anne’s island.
On Power Between Women: The Handmaid’s Tale Revisited
We know the damage of othering. What about the ravages of Same-ing?
The Body Has Teeth: On Stephen King and Stand By Me
“If I were writing a book about a movie, it would be Stand By Me.”
Annie Dillard, Azzy, and Me: On Motherhood and Loss
“I was left dazed and sad and missing my cat while tending to a newborn.”
Ernest Hemingway and Me: Reflections of an Insomniac Writer
“Insomnia is the bitter digestif to a long day of living.”
Elena Ferrante and Me: An Irrational Essay
“I felt betrayed. Not because she was no longer anonymous; I had never cared about that. But because she is not Elena.”
Elegy for a Journeyman
Author Frank M. Robinson shamelessly proselytized great literature he loved.
The Wife Monsters and Me
Why are ambitious wives in novels figured as dumb or evil or both?
Mavis Gallant and Me; or, Where Are You From?
Like her, I was a Canadian who left Canada. Like her, I wanted to be an unsentimental writer. But I was not Mavis Gallant.