The photo above is a screenshot from a joke video I made with my younger daughter. We both dressed and made ourselves up in an “old-lady look.” (If you read my post from last week, on my birthday, you’ll see that I’m actually delighted with my age. This post isn’t about that.) I know this…
“Why”…Wednesdays
84. Why I’m Happy at 51!
[Photo credit to Emma Brodie. Please remember that name so that you can buy her book when it comes out next summer.] This post will go live on my fifty-first birthday, making me three times as old as the older students I teach. (Eleventh graders are often seventeen.) Fifty-one used to sound old to me,…
83. Why Keep Your Options Open When It Comes to Book Publishing (Guest Post)
[Hi, Carita here. In the place of one of my traditional MFA classes, last summer I got to be an intern for a literary agent. No, I wasn’t getting anyone coffee or picking up dry cleaning. I was working on social media and online campaigns and learning about book submissions. My behind-the-scenes view into the…
82. Why We Won’t Remember 2020 as the Worst Year Ever (I hope)
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Maya Angelou, whose photo above I took from www.readitforward.com), said this line, and I hope it’s going to become 2020’s mantra. I don’t want anybody to think that I’m loving on 2020. In the world, this year has left…
81. Why I’m Thinking about “Like”
I have a complicated history with the word like. As an English teacher, I’ve tried to help many students learn to avoid using it as a filler. I’ve had “like police” and “like jars” and “like competitions,” some of which have helped people notice when they say it, but none of which probably had any…
80. Why (and How) to Keep Going (Guest Post by Rachael Herron)
[I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that you’re about to read my second guest post. This one came about because I was listening to one of my favorite writing podcasts, “How Do You Write” and heard Rachael Herron say something similar to what I had just written in one of my posts. I decided…
79. Why “Wild”
I was recently watching this YouTube clip of Dave Chappelle’s powerful monologue called 8:46. (I’ve linked it here, and maybe you’ll want to take the half hour to watch it before reading the rest of this post. That’s fine. I’ll wait here.) In his performance, it’s clear that he’s not shy about using profane language….
78. Why Time Flies…and Doesn’t
I took the screenshot above of this super cool episode of NPR’s “Short Wave” (linked here, so that you can listen and subscribe) on my second time hearing the show. The first time I heard it, I was out walking the dog, so I couldn’t focus completely. I wanted to hear it again, and I…
77. Why We Shouldn’t Live in the Present
I did a Google image search for “Live in the Present” and took the screen shot of the results, above. I have heard this admonition a lot in my life, but I think it’s a really bad idea. Right now, we’re in a weird moment in history. Some of us have a lot of time…
76. Why Never is the Time
I love the smell of lilacs, so I really enjoy walking around our beautiful campus in the spring, when the many bushes are blooming. Of course, I get to enjoy this smell for only a few weeks each year. I don’t know if this ephemeral quality makes me like the smell more or just reminds…