In the past two weeks I’ve been in three deep conversations about the need for a functional, gender-neutral pronoun in English. With the the growing comfort of transgender and intersex people in demanding equitable treatment, and with the increasing momentum for acknowledgment of the entire gender spectrum, more English speakers are being faced with a […]

My 6th-8th-grade Sunday School class has been working on an environmental education project for our church. The project, initially about doing one Adult Education session after worship next week on the environmental hazards of bottled water, has expanded to include topics of water conservation, consumer culture, misplaced federal spending priorities, and more. We’ll be working […]

I was teaching a class of middle school writers last Monday, part of an ongoing workshop, getting the mostly bilingual group of students ready to write an ode. We were going around the circle, each telling about someone or something that had influenced us and made us who were are. “The mistakes I find myself […]

On Thursday, I was standing at the bus stop and felt someone’s eyes on my back. I shifted slightly and out of the corner of my eye I saw a man making a beeline for me, so I turned to face him. I don’t normally make eye contact with strangers — it invites too much […]

The latest edition of Verse Wisconsin has just been published and it includes a discussion among women poets who blog — including me. Check out “A Means to Open the World: A Conversation Around Blogging, Five Women in Three Acts.” I mention a particular post from this blog in the interview and the link to […]

How far behind we are. I serve on the board of a statewide organization celebrating writers and writing. At our past couple meetings, we’ve been talking about renaming some of the annual awards we give in honor of recently published work. The awards were named after donors who provided the prize money a years ago, […]

I was bringing some dirty dishes to the church kitchen after teaching Sunday school yesterday when I saw a tall figure enter the men’s bathroom. “Hey!” I said, calling him back out. “Is that who I think it is? Come back out here!” That tall figure — towering about a head and a half over […]

I’ve been asked to be part of an art project about the value of literacy at a local school in March. The students will work with a visual artist on a mural for the wall outside their library. They’ll work with me on written reflections about why reading and writing matter. The teachers report that […]

This week, I want to refer you to a guest blog post I have up today at Stoneboat journal’s website. It’s about the continuing value I find in the community I became part of as a student in the Antioch University – Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing program. I graduated almost two years ago […]

I used to be a public person, not too long ago. Or, maybe not a “person.” A “figure.” Yes, just like that, a drawing, a quick sketch, five lines and a circle for a head, perhaps a face. I used to be a public figure. I was a local elected official or a candidate for […]