Memoirs, documentaries, and remarkable fiction
1. Reading: I really enjoyed Amy Sarig King’s middle grade book, The Year We Fell From Space. I know I’ve been like an A.S. King super-fan lately, but she’s so good at stories for young adults and adolescents. If you’re looking for a great book for adolescents or to...
How to find meaning to your life
“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is meaning to one’s life.” —Viktor E. Frankl Ever since I read this quote, I have been turning it over and over in my...
How to spark the imagination
We are all born with a giant measure of creativity. Of course that creativity looks different from person to person. Some use their creative brains to write fantastical or realistic stories. Some use creativity to draw portraits or dance on stage or act. Some use it...
Indigenous literature, great documentaries, and a lovely YA book
1. “The door is open. Go.” I recently finished Louise Erdrich’s masterpiece The Sentence. This is the first pandemic book I’ve read, and it’s probably the only one I want to read. Erdrich handled it so graciously and gently and somewhat peripherally, framed around a...
Becoming an activist in a volatile world
I recently returned to work from a Sabbatical week. During this Sabbatical week, I took luxurious naps and read for hours on end and hung out with my kids and watched documentaries and ate good food (probably too much) and rested as well as I could. I still feel...
3 productivity hacks for the fall
Now that my kids have been back in school for a while, I am settling into my schedule, trying to use my time as wisely as I can and be as productive as possible. As a task-oriented person, I have a slight productivity advantage over personalities like my...
An immigrant story, fantastical fantasy, and some good music
1. Reading: I recently finished Simu Liu’s memoir, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. It was both heartbreaking and inspiring, if a book can be such a thing. Liu shares about his family’s immigration to Canada, his fraught relationship with his...
We can all be immeasurably great and unfathomably deep
I’ve been pondering some deep things lately. I recently finished Simu Liu’s memoir, We Were Dreamers: an Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. Liu is probably best known for his role as the Marvel superhero Shang-Chi. But you might also know him from the TV show Kim’s...
Dragons, YouTube for writers, and tasty apples
1. Reading: One of the best books I’ve read so far this summer is Kelly Barnhill’s adult novel When Women Were Dragons. Barnhill is the Newbery award winning author of the middle grade novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon (also a beautifully...
Some goals have no arrival gate
Back before I published my first book in the traditional publishing world, I had erroneous ideas about what publishing would mean. I thought, for example, that when the first book launched into the world, I would have “arrived.” I would have “made it.” I would have...
