I’ve written about how my perspective about grief shifted dramatically when I lost my baby. O. was sixteen, my younger boy, and watching him slip away was terrifying. Living without him is like having a…
Lit Mag Love: Eileen Vorbach Collins
This Lit Mag Love is all about writer Eileen Vorbach Collins. Damn, she’s prolific and so good. I came across her award-winning piece in Lunch Ticket. It reminded me of the bins I have in…
Lit Mag Love: Ben Sandman
I know some people don’t like epistolary pieces, but I almost always do. This is a series of emails from a novelist on a deadline who’s moved to a new apartment with his wife, a…
Lit Mag Love: Casey Mulligan Walsh
I found writer Casey Mulligan Walsh in the June 2022 issue of Split Lip, where she lives up to their mission: We’re a literary journal that’s totally bonkers-in-love with voice-driven writing, pop culture, and the…
One for the Murphys
Even though North Country School had to shut down a little early because of that thing that begins with “c” and ends with “d”, the sixth graders and I were able to read One for…
Lit Mag Love: Nikki Schulak
My Lit Mag Love posts are all about finding treasures when I immerse myself in the hundreds of literary magazines online. I submitted a piece to Porcupine Literary, a magazine for and by teachers, but…
Published: Oh Reader
Grief and growth take center stage in The Third Mushroom, a middle-grade novel by the talented Jennifer L. Holm that serves as a follow-up to The Fourteenth Goldfish, a book I shared with my first…
Published: Grief Isn’t Always Center Stage
Long ago I worked as the first communications director for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. I love coffee and I loved living in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, but I didn’t love the job. I spent hours writing…
Published: Ticket to Ride
When Shutterfly landed in my inbox in December 2020, I felt assaulted by their cheery message to “push rewind” and relive memories from a family trip nearly a decade ago. So many of us are…
Published: Creating a Grief & Growth Notebook
The process I learned to help clients who’d experienced sexual assault reframe their trauma became an important feature of my own healing 17 years later when I lost my teenaged son to suicide. I call…