When A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN meets a farm in Iowa: MILK WITHOUT HONEY

“I’m looking for possible blurbs to be published on the back or inside cover of my 90-year-old mother’s novel,” Michelle Hoover wrote on Facebook. “Her health is precarious, she’s isolated in a care facility in Iowa, and I want to do something that raises her spirits and makes true one of her dreams, or as … Read more

Grandma Millie’s Stuffing: Childhood on a Fork (and how I Googled my way back to Thanksgiving)

My sister and I didn’t grow up rife with traditions. On Halloween we wore old shirts to represent that we were hobos or beatniks, depending on our mood.  When we hung our socks on Christmas Eve, seeing them flat and unfilled the next morning reminded us that Santa didn’t stop for little Jewish girls—but there … Read more

When Facebook Friends Ask ‘Anything’

Answering questions off the cuff is my favorite way of presenting—surprising (embarrassing?) myself with on-my-feet answers as I stumble into learning things I didn’t know about myself. Thus, when author Anjali Mitter Duva asked me to participate in the Arlington Author Salon, I was thrilled—until I cringed, imagining filling fifteen minutes without seeing or interacting with … Read more

Debut Books by Writers Over 40

(first published in 2011) Originally, I tried to resist writing this  9especially after my plea against categorizing authors.) Plus, so many of us hide our age in this world of never-get-old, unearthing this information, even in our Googlized world, was difficult. But when, along with the plethora of lists of writers under 40, I was faced … Read more