A Flick of the Pen

In the 1999 film American Beauty, there’s a scene where Annette Bening’s character, a real estate agent, cleans a house she’s trying to sell. Drawing the curtains closed, she breaks down crying. The emotional outburst indicated her character’s feeling of powerlessness and disappointment in how her life turned out. This…

At 88 Miles Per Hour I used to attribute my goal of becoming an author to having been inspired by S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders when I read it as a teenager. She herself was a teen when she published it, yet another source of inspiration for me. However, I have…

Me, dictating to my phone: “Call Dad.” Siri: “Call God.” Me: “Call…Dad.” Siri: “Call God.” Me: “Call! Dad!” Siri: “Call God.” Me: … Me: “Call God.” Siri: “Contact not found.”

In a prior life, I lived in Egypt. Not that I remember. And not that I was necessarily Egyptian – they were known to have transplants. I had a husband there, in whatever time period it was, who regularly cheated on me. Denis – that being who he is in…

As I reach the stop sign at the end of Hollow Hill Road, I see gravestones peeking at me over a granite wall. The marble monuments, darkened to a dull gray from one hundred-fifty years of exposure to the elements, their inscriptions rendered unreadable under the spread of lichen blotches.…