Lessons learned…one phone call at a time — “Hi, Mr. Lewis. I’m reaching out to save you hundreds of dollars on your long-distance bill.” “Go f@#k yourself,” Mr. Lewis replied. It was the early ’90s. AT&T, MCI and Sprint were battling for landline subscribers. I believed deeply that Americans were paying too much for their long-distance telephone calls. …

It’s a Twinkle, Twinkle daily nightmare — There are so many reasons I want my daughter to ditch violin. A few days ago, she screamed like a raving lunatic when she couldn’t play “May Song” correctly. As Emma hurled herself backward onto her bed, yelling, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” …

What are we holding onto? — Each month my husband and I spend $100 to continue freezing our embryos. I’m not even sure how many embryos there are. Maybe a dozen split roughly evenly between the two of us. The embryos are the ones that remain following the birth of our second child in October 2021…

Choosing between the present and past tense is often a false choice — We’ve been taught (correctly) that choosing the right tense is one of those critical decisions a writer must make. But when framed as a choice to be made only once for an entire work, whether an essay or a book, it can lead us astray. Because the writer has the…

Playing second fiddle to my husband is parental bliss — One of the main reasons why my husband, Chris, and I waited nine years before having a second child was that I couldn’t risk having another small child as obsessed with me as the first. It’s one thing to have a single child screaming and pounding on the bathroom door…

Public events can fuel your creativity — Looking for a new approach to writing creative nonfiction? Consider experimenting with the public-private essay. What do I mean by a public-private essay? It’s a work, typically a personal essay, in which the writer uses a public event as a springboard for personal or private reflection, change, or growth. …

Practical and whimsical advice on the writing life — If you want to write, you’ll need a cup of warm coffee, tea or carbonated beverage. Some people will tell you that you don’t need to drink anything besides water while you write. But they are wrong and probably being paid by the International Association of Water Distributors. If you…

What’s that about? — The holidays didn’t go as planned. I was supposed to visit family in Florida. Instead, I spent Christmas in my Chicago bedroom with COVID. I slept for most of the first three days. My waking hours consisted of marathon sessions of White Lotus (fantastic). And Harry & Meghan (less fantastic…

You shouldn’t either — People meet a Yankees fan like me and assume we’ve always had it good. We haven’t. My childhood and adolescence spanned one of the longest postseason droughts in Yankees history. From 1982 through 1994, the Yankees did not play a single postseason game. …