“A highlight of the month of December for my sisters and me, growing up in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s, was a trip downtown to breathe in the smoky caramel scent of chestnuts roasting on the tiny pushcarts of bundled-up street vendors, hear the jingling bells of Salvation Army Santas along…(Read More)

“She ordered me a lemonáda. For the next few weeks during that hot confusing summer, many years ago, this became our routine.” To read the rest of this personal essay, “Lemonáda,” about a summer I spent in Greece during a precarious moment in my youth — appearing in one of my all-time favorite…(Read More)

“Just follow.” He took off, pushing the larger ferns from his face. There were two paths to choose from, both signposted but neither marked with a destination he recognized. Why not just write “Summit”? Or “Top”? Or the equivalent in Spanish, with altitude noted? The top was where everyone wanted to go. To read the…(Read More)

“In journalism, immediacy is a valuable commodity. The journalist doesn’t want facts to become clouded by reflection. But literary fiction, the genre I write in, is about reflection.” In “Tools: The Power in Writing Where You Aren’t” for the e-zine Women Writers, Women’s Books, I wrote about the place of place…(Read More)

“From the day Jane walked out our front door — taking everything of value she could stuff in her car, except our seven-year-old daughter, Shoshana — the ferrets began appearing in our backyard.” Sometimes neighborly relationships are not so neighborly. To read the rest of this new short story, “The Beauty Secrets of Cave Dwellers…(Read More)

“Basically, I was a four-year-old insomniac creating novels in my head.” In this interview with Romilly Golding for Bwritr Sarl, I found myself chatting about all sorts of things unintended. To read more, please look here…(Read More)

Delighted to have been invited to spend two weeks in April of 2022 as a writer in residence at the Wildacres Retreat and Conference Center, high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A cabin of my own, no connectivity, and hours of quiet and solitude (but for the wild turkeys, deer, squirrels, and the occasional…(Read More)

Radio Télévision Suisse invited me to come down to their studio to discuss the work of 2021 Nobel Laureate in Literature Abdulrazak Gurnah. What a pleasure! For years, I’ve been recommending the Zanzibar-born, UK-based author’s work and teaching excerpts thereof — so delighted to see Gurnah receive this recognition and…(Read More)

“Are we ever entirely satisfied with our creative output? I’ve tried the thousand-words-a-day writing regimen, but the same process doesn’t necessarily fit every book. The one element that remains consistent for me is the need to construct a living breathing world and living breathing individuals within it before I start…(Read More)

After spending a month at Yaddo in 2019, I was delighted to share a few words on the famed artist retreat’s inspirational history and brave future with one of my favorite publications, AD (Architectural Digest). To read the piece in entirety (and see pics!), look here…(Read More)