Lonely Essays and a Literary Fever Dream

Editor Natalie Eve Garrett's Eat Joy was an essay collection I adored: well-known writers from a spectrum of backgrounds and genres writing about their favorite comfort foods, or what that concept meant to them. Her latest curated collection The Lonely Stories: 22 Celebrated Writers on the Joys & Struggles of Being Alone follows a similar... Continue Reading →

Two Blends of Memoir and Contemporary Analysis: Body Work and Trapped in the Present Tense

Melissa Febos' Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative is both memoir and guidebook, and a meditation on what life writing does for us and the importance of it to women and underrepresented groups. Febos is the author of several works of memoir and autobiographical fiction, and although I haven't read her before, she's... Continue Reading →

How Cooking Made Living Seem Possible

Book review: Midnight Chicken, by Ella Risbridger (Amazon / Book Depository) There is a German word, kummerspeck, that translates literally as 'grief-bacon,' and metaphorically as 'comfort eating'. This book is the grief-bacon book...This is the book I wanted to read when I was sad, but it's also a book for good days. I'm not going... Continue Reading →

Poet Ross Gay Writes His Delights

Book review: The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay (Amazon / Book Depository) It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study... Continue Reading →

The Many Phases of Michelle

Book review: Becoming, by Michelle Obama (Amazon / Book Depository) When you're First Lady, America shows itself to you in its extremes. Michelle Obama's life has had so many facets already: two Ivy League degrees, a successful career in corporate law, vice president of a hospital, nonprofit director, not to mention a mother, a role... Continue Reading →

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