(life of a writer with kids) Setting: interior, a cluttered home office near a front door. A woman types on a laptop, her face a little too close to the screen. Time: present day, dinner time….well, maybe a few minutes later (a KEY turns in the lock and the FRONT…

Here’s a modest suggestion for connecting with your people I’m old enough to remember when writing a letter in the mail or slipping a note under a door was the only way to securely know that a friend was going to receive your message. I vividly remember when “answering machines”…

(flash fiction) I already took out the trash and cleaned up the bottles that you and dad drank last night and dusted and swept and I would have weeded but I didn’t want to be outside when the phone rang in case you didn’t pay the bill again and I…

forming a link between America’s slave trade and its economy — Last weekend I randomly decided to rent a CitiBike on Governor’s Island (which was a saga in and of itself, the story of which is on my Substack if you’re curious) — and on my circumnavigation of the island in the rain, I suddenly thought I heard chains clanking in…

Learn from my mistakes Follow directions from internet and get to the closest train station. Do not oversleep your stop. Only one train door will open because this is the actual scene when you get off the train: Discover a staircase. Assume civilization is on the other side of the staircase.

(I am, frankly, sick and tired of codesharing on airlines) — I live in NYC. I can go on GrubHub or Seamless and order a hamburger from any one of a dozen burger places near me. The service (with its mandatory app) brings me the burger I ordered and charges me a stupid fee that I won’t really notice because the…

Guess 21 years is the charm. — I was supposed to meet my friend Bill on the plaza of WTC at the base of Tower One on Sept 11, 2001. We were co-writing a musical and met every Tuesday at 8:30am at the Cosi Coffee Shop before his first class at Tisch. But on Sept 10 of…

It’s so easy to think of Governor’s Island as just a nice picnic place — no cars allowed, free ferry rides for IDNYC members, and spectacular views of NYC’s skyline as well as Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, and the comings and goings of cruise ships. It’s also easy to think…

and other annoying things about markets — It is hard to be a creator in America. America values things using data. Data means quantifiable measurements— so literary agents look for a following, editors look for a market, publishers seek monetization, companies want branded product sales…. everything boils down to numbers. Numbers are left-brain things. They go well…