Featured Essays

UNDERCOVER SOUNDTRACK
Though I’m a writer of prose, it’s music that seems to me the most transcendent art form. Music casts a collective spell that detaches listeners from the tangible world and encourages a sort of free fall of emotional experience that doesn’t require words to be passionately felt…read more

A PLAYLIST FOR WHISPER HOLLOW
Although I have no gift for playing any kind of instrument—including my voice—I try to harness the power of music in my novels. In fact, I am a writer probably because I can’t be a musician…read more

THE FIRST TIME I SAW A STRANGER READING MY BOOK
My seatmate on a flight to Minneapolis was a smartly dressed woman in her mid-fifties. She gave me a polite demi-smile when I took my aisle seat, but the way she turned her attention to…read more

THE STORY BEHIND WHISPER HOLLOW
My son started telling me ghost stories before he was two years old. The most memorable was when we were out for a walk, and from his stroller, he pointed to a passing school bus…read more

WHERE WRITERS WRITE
Each of us begins with a sense of place. Place is an essential and inexorable part of our understanding of the world, and later, ourselves. Place is where our families of origin forged their lives. It may be where we were born, grew up, experienced our most mundane or our most profound moments…read more