Ever since I was in high school, I dreamed of owning a convertible. What I actually drove in high school — shared with my brother -was my mother’s hand-me-down Oldsmobile Omega. It wasn’t until I was turning fifty and my youngest child was getting her license that my then boyfriend…

Parenting ideas to foster a love of language — I finished Jennifer Ziegler’s beautiful novel WORSER over the weekend, and I can’t tell you how much I wish my late parents were still alive so I could share it with them. Mom and Dad—along with teachers and librarians who never, ever, told me that a book was “too high…

It’s not irrational — it’s a survival mechanism. I have a bottle of anti-anxiety meds that my psychiatrist prescribed when I was having a Kavanaugh hearings related PTSD episode. At the time, she assured me “You aren’t alone.” I haven’t had to use them since then. I’ve had enough therapy…

(with apologies to Margaret Wise Brown) In the dark concrete room There was a Satanic pedophile And a sense of doom And a picture of — A fascist authoritarian loon There were three little sheeple with lizard people And coastal elites Who practiced deceit. And the latest Q Drop And…

This is an essay I wrote back in 2013 for the anthology Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Delectable Essays: Your Favorite Authors Take A Stab at the Dreaded Essay Assignment edited by Rebecca Stern and Brad Wolfe. To buy it from Bookshop.org click here. “Without Freedom of Thought there…

Warning: Contains spoilers for Season 2 Episode 5 A few days ago on Twitter, comedian Megan Beth Koester tweeted about Ted Lasso :

First things first. I’m not here to pile on to Whoopi. In fact, I think ABC News president Kim Godwin made a big mistake in suspending her.

Pay close attention to state and local politics During the Trump presidency, the constant toxic firehose emitting from the Oval Office distracted attention from state and local politics. The extremist wing of the Republican Party ( which seems to compromise a frighteningly large percentage these days) didn’t make that…

(This was originally published on January 16, 2015 on my TYPE A LITTLE FASTER blog. Reupping in light of the latest #charliehebdo controversy) I am a fervent supporter of free speech. I’m a member of the PEN Center USA, the ACLU, the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Foundation…