I get really excited about a book that gets me to read a genre I usually don’t like, and makes me love somebody in the process. I don’t usually like […]
Philip K. Dick Award Finalist
My debut novel, THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE, is on the shortlist for the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to […]
Fat Vampire: What the hell was that?
It’s been a long time since I’ve been fooled like this. Authors generally suck at concealing where they’re going. They telegraph their intentions through tropes and foreshadowing and I am […]
The Country Gentleman
There aren’t many choices when you’re a matronly 15 year old virgin who wants to be someone else. You can’t be the beautiful girl you’d literally kill to become. You’re […]
Dressing to suit your own personal fable
You wore your hair in braids last night and now it’s doing that rippling thing that helps it to catch the sun. Leave it down. You have that loose dress […]
How to Read Your Novel in Public
Invite all your friends. Convince yourself that if the gathering is mostly friends, you will feel less nervous. Forget to warn them that your work is entirely unsuitable for children. […]
Margot Adler
I don’t have many role models. There just aren’t a lot of people like me. I see pieces of myself here and there; I take my examples from a wide […]
The cure for the common cold
Alright, I googled this and I’m not the first person to come up with it. So maybe this is more well-known than I think it is, but when it occurred […]
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife
I wrote a book. I am a novelist. I started writing the story that would become The Book of the Unnamed Midwife last summer. I had the idea during finals […]
Pretty Damned Good Day
I applied to speak at commencement about two weeks before the due date. I didn’t think I had any kind of a chance to win, but I tried really hard […]