“It was 1997, and I was 23 and working in Boston in my first professional job as a sales service representative for an educational publisher. I answered the 1-800 hotline and spoke with customers all day. But my goal was to become an editor.
One unsuspecting day about six months into the job, my coworkers and I were gathered to learn that our department was being eliminated.”
Read MoreRollerskating. The shine of a newly waxed wooden floor. The clunk, clunk, clunk of those four wheels speeding around the rink. The throbbing pop music pumping through the speakers. I love the roller rink. I spent my adolescence there, and now, as a momma, I take my kids.
The first time I took them, I hadn’t been rollerskating in a while, but I was game. We laced up our skates and hit the floor. Literally. It didn’t take more than four rotations before my face made a beeline for that waxy wood. But something in my mind kicked in.
Read MoreI met Trice at The Absinthe House on Pearl Street. The bar doesn’t exist anymore, but when it did they had weekly reggae nights. I spotted him immediately—that woven tam cap slouching over two kind eyes, those baggy jeans swaying gracefully to the music. He asked me to dance, and I asked him what he did—proving that first impressions aren’t everything. That sometimes, the soul’s story sounds like The Wailers when it sings.
Read MoreInside, 20 teenagers—many of them scarred, tattooed, broken-looking—talked in small groups. After I was introduced, the kids looked at me somewhat suspiciously. As I told them why I loved this incredible story of a young boy’s journey across the frozen Badlands of the Dakotas in search of his fugitive older brother, it occurred to me that I might not be able to give away any books at all.
Read MoreOutside of Austin, about an hour away in Smithville, on a lonely, remote road that leads to an even more lonely and remote plot of land, there is a magical place called Scream Hollow Wicked Halloween Park. Like the fairy land of Celtic lore that reveals itself at twilight, Scream Hollow is only open to visitors during the most magical month of all. October.
Read MoreOh Patience. You are not just a word that belongs with musty hymnals and hard candies. You are fighting to stay relevant. Trying on hi-low dresses. Signing up for Twitter. You show me your Amazon Prime account…
Read MoreAs a kid, I watched “Field of Dreams” and felt the magic. I saw a man plow his Iowa cornfield to make room for the impossible. As a grown-up writer, the film still resonates. I recently had a dream come true: I signed with an incredible literary agent, Natalie Lakosil of Bradford Literary Agency.
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