That’s a photo of my oldest two on our very first day of homeschooling. September 9, 1997. Look at my H with his gappy smile–he knocked out that tooth at three–all proud of his clay head creation. Look at my Lulu with that sweet fat cheek, cutting clay competent as anything though she isn’t yet two. The [...]

My friends, bless their hearts, have heard me yammer on about kids and writing for years. They know that once I get going, I won’t stop. I have so much enthusiasm for kids, and writing, and how to help kids get enthusiastic about writing, that I will gladly go on for as long as they’ll let [...]

I don’t like reading. This is what my 14-year-old says, just before he breaks my heart. But what he’s saying isn’t exactly accurate. For one, he’s saying it as a response to me bugging him about why he doesn’t read more. Which irritates him, and makes him want irritate me right back. And he knows [...]

I know I said I’d write about reading in January, but once January arrived I could think of no better way to oust that Christmas tree from this page than with a photo of a journal. Everyone loves journals in January. That one right there is where I’m working on my MFA. I ordered this journal last [...]

Oh, December. It’s so hard to write a blog post in you. I’m itching to write about how my 14-year-old doesn’t like to read. Which isn’t entirely true–he reads all the time, just not in my traditional definition of reading. It would be fun to tease it apart here, but no one wants to read [...]

Oh, hi! You may be thinking, Where have you been, lady? And I would tell you that I’ve been spending time with my kids. Though not entirely as you might think. For one thing, I’ve been spending lots of time with H and Lulu in 1996. I’ve been taking this The Thirty-Minute Memoir course, and writing [...]