READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
The End of Drum-Time
One day while writing I fell down this massive rabbit hole and came across something called discrete emotion theory, which posits that everyone — regardless of culture or geography — has the same set of basic emotions. There are exceptions and nuances, though…mostly having to do with language, which is how I circled into this whole thing in the first place.
Want
This year I tried to tussle with my “I don’t like it, but maybe I like it” stance toward “popular books.” (In fact, I’m currently writing a blog post about The Vanishing Half [very popular] and The Glass Hotel [normal, somewhat understated popular].) Want by Lynn Steger Strong – which, by the way, was named a top book of 2020 by NPR and was also included in The New Yorker’s ‘Best Books We Read in 2020’ [but does that mean it’s ‘popular’?] – provides an excellent framework for this loop-de-loop thinking.
You're So Plain: On the Landscapes that Shape Us
What comprises “home”? How are we shaped by our communities? More importantly: Is there really no mountain high enough? This blog post isn’t really an essay with a nice conclusion. Rather, reading The Plains by Gerald Murnane has caused me to ruminate “out loud” on a topic that I’ve circled ever since I started this blog – and for certain, a topic that has lodged itself in my mind ever since I was a little girl, lying on our family room floor, feet propped up against our hearth, watching the light on the floor as it dodged in between clouds.What comprises “home”? How are we shaped by our communities? More importantly: Is there really no mountain high enough? This blog post isn’t really an essay with a nice conclusion. Rather, reading The Plains by Gerald Murnane has caused me to ruminate “out loud” on a topic that I’ve circled ever since I started this blog – and for certain, a topic that has lodged itself in my mind ever since I was a little girl, lying on our family room floor, feet propped up against our hearth, watching the light on the floor as it dodged in between clouds.What comprises “home”? How are we shaped by our communities? More importantly: Is there really no mountain high enough? This blog post isn’t really an essay with a nice conclusion. Rather, reading The Plains by Gerald Murnane has caused me to ruminate “out loud” on a topic that I’ve circled ever since I started this blog – and for certain, a topic that has lodged itself in my mind ever since I was a little girl, lying on our family room floor, feet propped up against our hearth, watching the light on the floor as it dodged in between clouds.
