Journal
Coming Home
March 27, 2022Essay
My husband called me to the kitchen window this morning as he made coffee. “Look, the ducks are back.” Sure enough, a mallard and his mate strolled through our backyard, no doubt looking for a place to nest. We live near a creek bed. The ducks return each year in the spring, joining sandhill. …
Agatha of Little Neon
In Claire Luchette’s debut novel, Agatha comes into her own like a pot coming to a slow boil. The Catholic sisterhood seems a safe place to enjoy the camaraderie of other women, pass her days with spoiled students and recovering addicts, and quietly hide from questions she dares not ask. But the …
Beholden to Mystery
September 8, 2021Essay
At the end of summer a few years ago, I scoped out an empty spot in my garden to plant the mystery daylily I gleaned from a wooden box at farmers market. A handwritten sign on a popsicle stick above the dug-up leftovers invited passers-by to “Take one, or not.” I took one, soil still… …
The Barbizon Hotel
When the heroine of my forthcoming novel, Candlewood, moves to New York City in 1979 to reinvent herself, she stays at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. Although she arrives there through a series of mishaps, she finds herself at the iconic address that launched many a dreamer. Paulina Bren, recent …
The Father of Lies
January 17, 2021Essay
This January finds me contemplating the underneath of things. Creatures tunnel under the snow making unseen paths, communicating with each other in the dark, feeding each other twigs and nuts, maps and news. And then, one day they emerge. I see their tracks tight and close along fences and rock …
Doorkins Magnificat
December 18, 2020Articles
What’s a cathedral to do when its beloved tabby climbs the Tree of Life for the last time? Give it a fine sendoff, of course. London’s Southwark Cathedral did just that for their feline friend who mewed among its pews for the last dozen years. Thousands who had come to know the stray, dubbed …
Civil Rights – Then & Now
For a reminder of how we got to the Black Lives Matter movement and a resurgence of caste systems in America, read We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White. Two college friends find divergent paths to address the inequities they become aware of in the persons of black housekeepers. Their …
“Preeminent” – The Power of a Word
October 8, 2020Uncategorized
As a writer, I understand that the choice of words, and their nuance, can make all the difference in the way my readers see a character, an idea, a story. This year, the Catholic Bishops of the United States learned that lesson. They provoked a firestorm by using the words “preeminent priority” to …
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