“I faced myself that day with the nonplussed apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire with no crucifix in hand,” Joan Didion, “On Self-Respect,” 1961. Recently, I had a low week (which turned into weeks), in which every bad decision, failing, and the general wrong turns weighed upon me. I was left unhappy, brittle, and
“Writers are always selling somebody out,” Joan Didion explains in the opening pages of Slouching Toward Bethlehem. These words clawed at me days after reading them in December. Now months later, the words still scratch at me when I begin to write. Didion’s words give me pause as I start new columns and projects. Do writers, implicitly or
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I wrote this piece over three years ago when my daughter was two years old. It was my attempt to work through my conflicting relationship between my academic work and parenting. I wanted to document how I always felt torn between my desire to be a “good” mother and a “good” academic. I felt I
I’ve published my first non-academic book review over at BookTrib. I reviewed Jennifer Senior’s All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood (Ecco: 2014), which I adored. I recommend to all parents, and anyone who wants to understand why parents act in the erratic ways that we do. (Hint: It has something to
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I gave up many things for graduate school, and popular fiction was one of them. Training to be a religious historian meant that reading became my job rather than my beloved hobby. I only had time to read the 30 plus books assigned for seminars each semester. I’ve never read so much in my life
Genre Fiction Saved My Life Read More
I’m not kidding. Really. I made it onto the site. No, I’m not all of a sudden a celebrity, nor did I do something distasteful enough to be noticed (much to the relief of my family). Instead, it is the fault of Neil deGrasse Tyson, or rather, it is the fault of my recent piece
Look, I made Gawker! Read More