Author, Journalist, Pop Folklorist
I’m not a psychic, so I can’t make predictions. But as a fiction writer, I can indulge in the occasional fantasy. And having been both a Sunday School teacher for first graders (“What it Means to be an Orthodox Christian”) and the first-ever beauty editor for People magazine, I’ve got a fantasy-slash-prediction about the upcoming…
Read more about Season’s Eatings: Les Miz, McLent, and Hollywood’s Latest (Imaginary) Diet Craze
When I was a senior in college, taking a class called the Literature of Social Reflection, the teaching fellow leading my discussion section of the course introduced herself by saying, “I’m a writer…and, a mother.” At 21, I thought this was the most hilarious phrase I had ever heard. And so did all my friends,…
When it comes to cultural events and spiritual uplift, I love church and I love dancing. But you just don’t often get to do the two together. Except in Diriamba, Nicaragua, where I just attended the Reese’s Peanut Butter cup of community events, the last day of the festival for the patron saint of Diriamba…
When you live in a place where December is as hot as July is elsewhere, Christmas imagery depends a lot less on snowmen, sleigh rides through the wood to grandmother’s house, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. There’s a Christmas tree in our complex in Granada, Nicaragua, but it’s fake, as are the ones…
Last week I went around the corner to buy baby wipes and saw Jesus Christ coming down the street. I didn’t get the baby wipes—you can’t buy those on the street corner pharmacies or in the corner stores, which are called pulperias here in Granada, Nicaragua. You have to go to the big American-style supermarket…
Proust had his madeleines, the taste of which brought back multiple volumes of memories of his youth. Mamina, my grandmother-in-law, has Mother Soniat’s fudge. And she didn’t even need to taste it; just holding the recipe in her hand called up the sweet taste of her high school years, when she and her sister left…
Read more about Remembrances of Teachers Past: A Thanksgiving Thank-You Note
