Emerging from a Pandemic: How to Take Care of Your Mental Health
It has been a long fifteen months. Like, interminably long. For over a year now, we've hunkered down, stayed in, kept our distance. We...
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- May 19, 2021
- 3 min
How Words & Stories Will Save Us All
A real book with my name on it! Stories can save lives. That may seem overly dramatic, but I believe it with my whole self....
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- Apr 16, 2021
- 5 min
Why Are We Taught to Hide Our Emotions?
I'm not afraid to speak my mind, except when it comes to my emotions, one of my students wrote recently (I'm paraphrasing here). It made...
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- Mar 28, 2021
- 4 min
I'm Kind of Afraid to Go Back to Normal
All week I've been looking forward to my fully-vaccinated grandmother coming over for dinner. I love cooking for people and having them...
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- Mar 13, 2021
- 4 min
Emotions Are Exhausting
When my bipolar disorder brings me down, makes me question and even hate myself, it manifests in my body. I feel drained, weak....
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- Mar 1, 2021
- 3 min
Calling Out Other White People
I manage social media for the Children's Literacy Foundation. Mostly cute pics of kids with books, recommendations of books, articles...
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- Feb 14, 2021
- 3 min
Saying No to the Right Things
Like so many women, in particular, I feel compelled to say "yes" to everything. I've written about saying no before, but that doesn't...
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- Jan 30, 2021
- 3 min
Eating Disorders Never Really Go Away
For a long time, I've said "I had an eating disorder as a young teen," but the truth is, my eating has always been disordered and, even...
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- Jan 15, 2021
- 7 min
Speaking Out: Destigmatizing Mental Health
Lecturing at the Bennington Writing Seminars in January 2019 It was two years ago this week that I first stood up in front of a lecture...
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- Dec 20, 2020
- 5 min
Finding Joy in Difficult Times
The Christmas I was thirteen my aunts challenged my brother and me to a sledding contest. Our elderly neighbors had a steep hill that...
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- Nov 29, 2020
- 3 min
A Tether to this World: An Anthology of Mental Health Recovery Stories
The first book with only my name on it About eight months ago, as the global shit was hitting the metaphorical fan, I was on a...
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- Nov 23, 2020
- 4 min
That Time I Almost Died
I'm a proponent of marking dates to reflect on the past: here's where I was a year ago, here's that big thing that happened five years...
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- Nov 2, 2020
- 4 min
Vote Like Your Life Depends On It
The first time I was old enough to vote for the President, I was spending a semester in Tunisia. I was living with a host family -...
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- Oct 30, 2020
- 2 min
Take Those Good Rejections Seriously
My cluttered inbox is full of rejections from literary journals. Rejection is the only way to get anywhere in the writing world. Everyone...
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- Oct 5, 2020
- 2 min
If Your Goal is to Try, You Can't Fail
"The only form of failure is not writing," Garth Greenwell said at my MFA commencement. I wrote that quote on an index card and stuck it...
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- Sep 27, 2020
- 2 min
Love What You Create
"Well, congratulations on getting this published last year!" I told my student after I'd read an old poem of hers. "Thanks, but now I...
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- Sep 20, 2020
- 3 min
Judging Strangers' Most Private Pain
It's a strange thing, judging strangers' most deeply personal pain, but that's what I've been doing as I edit A Tether to this World:...
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- Sep 14, 2020
- 6 min
When Therapy Makes It Worse
After the manic episode a few years ago that I thought of as a break down ("Think of it more like a breaking open," my therapist said),...
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- Sep 7, 2020
- 4 min
9-1-1: I Didn't Bring Enough Books.
I'm a reader. As a shy and awkward kid, I read at recess, and on the bus, and while other kids were playing and laughing and being...
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- Aug 31, 2020
- 4 min
In a Flash: How to Write Flash Fiction
In addition to being a reader for Literary Orphans, I'm also a judge for NYC Midnight, which hosts time-sensitive writing competitions....
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