I grew up on a small farm in West Townsend, Massachusetts, northeast of the Worcester Hills, at the border of southern New Hampshire. Its house and barns were built in 1800, and thirty years later, as the first stirrings of the Industrial Revolution whispered through, my family erected a cooperage t...

Last night I went to bed earlier than usual. I’d avoided coffee all day so that sleep might come. Yet after half an hour of turning from side to side, the same unworthy temptation returned. To ingest something I knew would poison my soul—still, I could not restrain myself. My hand drifted back . . .

To plan a route to pick up my child from school, I check iceout.org for a map of recent ICE sightings. They’ve multiplied in recent days, with the Federal occupation surging to 3,000 agents in Minneapolis, five times the size of the city’s police department. Earlier in the morning, an unconfirmed co...

I still have my first book in English, A Picture Dictionary for Children by Garnette Watters and S. A. Courtis, given to me by Mrs. Woodward, a Block Parent volunteer who lived several blocks from our home on Norfolk Street. Though I wasn’t part of the program, Mrs. Woodward had approached me . . .

In memory of Baron Wormser, February 4, 1948–October 7, 2025. The subject line of the email read “Bad news.” It was late September 2025, and Baron and I were scheduled to teach a weekend writing workshop together in early October. At first, I figured “bad news” meant a scheduling conflict . . .

A couple of years ago I co-organized an AWP (Association for Writers and Writing Programs) Conference panel to discuss the bridges between literature and climate justice. During the Q&A portion of the panel, someone in the audience asked a valid question about whether writing . . .