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CARITA GARDINER

What to Read When You're Avoiding School Work

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“Why”…Wednesdays

279. Why Celebrate My Left Hand

Posted on May 1, 2024April 30, 2024 by caritagardiner

The photo above will link you to AxeVentures, the San Diego establishment in which I managed to make a sharp blade stick into a wall of wood after enough failed attempts that I felt as elated as this pose appears. And while I threw the axe with my right hand and NEVER would have thought…

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278. Why Puzzles Not Problems

Posted on April 24, 2024April 23, 2024 by caritagardiner

I took the photo above at our cabin in Maine. We bought the jute rug to create a cozy spot by our wood stove before we thought about just how flammable that woven material is. The thing’s basically made out of kindling. At first, we flipped the rug over (as you can see above) to…

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NetGalley Review of The Slowest Burn

Posted on April 22, 2024September 17, 2024 by caritagardiner

title: The Slowest Burn author: Sarah Chamberlain publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin publication date: September 24, 2024 pages: 336 peppers:  (3 on this scale) warnings: blood, alcohol, non-using alcoholic, fainting (This is the first time I remember seeing “vasovagal syncope” in a book. I feel seen — as I am writing this review with one hand, my…

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Copy of NetGalley Review of Late Bloomer

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by caritagardiner

[Dear Readers, I’m reposting this one for its publication week. You can check out the author @mazeyeddings on Instagram and @SMPromance will bring you to the publisher. Enjoy!] title: Late Bloomer author: Mazey Eddings publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin publication date: April 16, 2024 pages: 400 peppers: 3 (on this scale) warnings: talk of drug use, mean parents,…

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277. Why Be Explicit

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by caritagardiner

The photo above has nothing to do with this week’s topic. It’s a photo my husband made of our dog using AI. I thought about what kind of image could accompany this post’s title and realize that “explicit” has come to mean something very different from its original definition. Since my idea doesn’t connect to…

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276. Why Laugh (Guest Post)

Posted on April 10, 2024April 9, 2024 by caritagardiner

[Carita here: Hi, Readers. The photo above should give you a sense of guest blogger Sarah Zarbock’s spirit and humor. Holding a cow was on her bucket list––maybe why make and complete a bucket lists should become the topic of a future Why Wednesday––so here she is holding a cow. I’m thrilled to be able…

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275. Why Engineer for Good

Posted on April 3, 2024April 2, 2024 by caritagardiner

In November, I got to go on a trip I’ll probably write several posts about. Here’s the first of them. I took the photo above in the salt mines in Wieliczka, Poland. (If you want to see many other photos I took on that tour, please feel free to check out my Instagram post-my account…

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274. Why You Know Yourself Best

Posted on March 27, 2024March 26, 2024 by caritagardiner

[Before I get into the actual topic, I want to talk about the photo above. Our dog, Tuukka, passed away in January. He would have been eleven next month. We loved having him in our lives. I selected the photo above because I have been thinking about him and wanted to share a photo that…

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273. Why You Don’t Know Yourself

Posted on March 20, 2024March 19, 2024 by caritagardiner

It’s true, what it says above, that you know yourself better than other people know you. However, I posit that you don’t know yourself well enough yet. Here’s what I’m thinking. I’ve heard people cop out of trying to do things by saying, “I know myself, I won’t ever…” You can fill in the ending…

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272. Why Their Idea Was a Win-Win-Win

Posted on March 13, 2024March 13, 2024 by caritagardiner

I vividly remember the dress I got to wear when my beginner ice-skating class had roles in Robert Crown’s Nutcracker on Ice circa 1978. The dress was white with a three-tiered skirt that billowed out for as long as I could spin fast enough. I believe my group were all sugar plum fairies, but I…

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WHAT I DO

I serve as a class dean and teach English to high schoolers at a boarding school in Connecticut. I’ve earned a Bachelor of Arts (Amherst College), an Education Master in Learning and Teaching (Harvard University Graduate School of Education), a Master of Arts in English (Bread Loaf School of English), and most recently a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a certificate in the online teaching of writing (Southern New Hampshire University).

As a writer, I hope to capture the complexity and joy of life in the New England boarding school world. On this site, I share what I know about trying to write fiction while deaning, teaching English, coaching, and doing the other tasks associated with helping to raise over six hundred other people’s children.

WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU

Teach                    Tutor

Revise                   Edit

Entertain             Enlighten

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Contact Me

  • cgardine@hotchkiss.org

Read my recent “Why” Wednesday Blog Posts

  • NetGalley Review of Sunny Side Up
  • 337. Why Not Fit In
  • 336. Why SFAH
  • NetGalley Review of The Ripple Effect
  • NetGalley Review of Far and Away
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