"This is America?"In first grade, we stood each morning to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It was the late 1960s and all girls were required to wear...
Life at an Artists' Residency, (Which is and isn't just like Camp)Yesterday I sat down mid-afternoon, under a robin’s egg blue sky, gazing at the treetops beginning to turn yellow and red. I picked up my...
Try Swiping RightI saw an old friend last weekend (name and info changed.) Mary is a social worker, a few years older than I, smart and witty, quietly...
Searching for "The Roses Man"I met “The Roses Man” when I was 5 or 6 years old, attending Franklin Elementary School in East Orange, New Jersey. I was freshly...
How the Witch Became a ModelWhen I was five, my heaven was a tiny dusty theater at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey. My father taught music history there....
Tracy Chapman Trounced Me but It's OKI was a senior at Tufts University when I entered a competition with an improbable band comprised of the Rabbi, the Dean, and two other...
If I Only. . . Or, What You Bring to Life's PicnicIn the The Wizard of Oz, little Dorothy, in her blue-checked dress, encounters a series of misfits who become friends. First, she meets...
Winning the Worst AwardPicture me at 22 years old, bright eyed with big hair and a big smile to match. I strode the campus of my college, Tufts University, with...
How I met TED“You should do a TED talk,” a literary agent suggested, as I blinked at her. “A TED talk? What would I even talk about? And how do you...
Darkness Descends; An Ode to JoyIt crept in like a low fog, so lightly that I didn’t notice it beginning to swirl around me. A vague unease, a weighty sigh. The sun...