Blog

On a television show I was recently watching, there was a curvy girl trying out for a ballet summer program. She got cut almost immediately. Her ballet teacher gave her a wig and told her to go audition again under another name. She quickly got cut again. Her ballet teacher sent her in again under…

As human beings, we do a lot of damage to ourselves. Sometimes the most heinous damage may seem the most benign. It is impossible to measure the toll of those voices—those internal voices that we have running through our minds on continuous loop—the voices that say we aren’t good enough, funny enough, or stylish enough;…

In the subways of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) advertising is ubiquitous. Paid advertising lines the walls of subway cars. Ads hang overhead and lurk around at eye level. Entrepreneurs hijack the paid advertising by attaching their own flyers and stickers to the glossy surface of the “legitimate” ads. Up until last year, the…

We live in a culture that believes in diminishing returns. Everything, it is said, depreciates. When I’m caught up in this hysteria, I try to remember examples that contradict this belief. Fine wines, beloved talismans, inherited furniture, and friendships whose years of association add immeasurably to their value. There are many people around us, too,…

A year is just a concept—just like a month, a week, an hour, a minute, and a second. These are all concepts that some human being created to manage this great stretch of awareness that is the human experience. These carefully calibrated concepts are sometimes the only things that help people to continue living. “This…

Every once in a while a friend confides that she is sure she’s been kicked off my writing blog. “It’s been a long time since I received a new post, maybe you don’t want me on your list anymore,” friends will speculate. I assure them that no one’s been kicked off my blog. “It’s not…

One of the things I have never wanted to embrace was the sheer amount of work writing takes. Novel writing in particular is a long game—and it can be harrowing, depending on your level of practice and your outlook on the process. What doesn’t help the process is the self-judgment, the denial, and the rejection…