The summer people choked the road, filled up the taverns, trashed the beachfront, and parked everywhere and anywhere, even in places they shouldn’t. Moss’s father was on the city council and had tried, unsuccessfully, to find funding to build a lot so driveways wouldn’t get blocked. The idea of a new parking lot was great, and some other council members, Susan Elliot in particular, thought the price was doable, given that her brother-in-law owned a paving company just over in Shelton, but then Joe Haskel and Fran McNamara raised an excellent point: what would it be used for in the…
It’s like this, Sara says. Joel has a bad day, someone gives him shit at work, a customer is a freak about the service warranty, you know, something like that, and he’s hurting, all wrung-out, so I take over dinner and dishes and let him sit and chill. He gets what he needs without having to ask for it. When I have a crap day — and I have a lot, you know? Those people who come into my branch all have ambient temperature IQs. Hell, the other day, this woman says she wants to put money in her account…
I wanted brothers. Two, maybe three, but one alone would have kept me safe from my sister’s abuse, her never-ending rage at my being born.
This necessary brother would be in the middle, between us age-wise, a willing defender. He’d always take my side.
This brother would be taller than I but not smarter. I would teach him how to respect women, to listen to them, to try to get in their heads. This would let him grow up to be the kind of man I married — sensitive and fair. …
If A Winter Night were a box of chocolates, the assortment would be heavy on syrupy fruit and nuts, because protagonist Angie finds that flavor palette divine. She fancies herself a disciplined aesthetic, dedicated to her job as a social worker, and living a simple, orderly life. In fact, she’s all over the place, falling in love at the drop of a hat, getting crushed, and drowning her sorrow in decadent snacks.
If A Winter Night were a bouquet, the flowers in the arrangement would be pink roses, white carnations, baby’s breath, and a thistle. Angie tells herself she’ll never…
MY FATHER WANTED SONS
My feminism began with my father, who wanted sons. Had I been one he’d have named me Paul after my mother’s father, or Bruce, after no one he knew. He must have liked the sound alone, the angry strength of it, harking back to a long-lost Scots-Irish ancestor with an oblique connection to Robert The Bruce.
His wanting sons over daughters didn’t make him unique. A man wants his name to go on. This was before women kept their maiden names, or joined their husband’s with a hyphen. Isn’t that an interesting word, “maiden?”
My father…
originally published in Women Writers, Women’s Books
I recently took part in a virtual author event with two other women writers. Let me say how much I have come to appreciate the magic of Zoom video conferencing, aside from not having a paid account which meant getting dumped off the call after forty minutes. No problem, everyone, including the audience, was able to log back in. The three of us spoke about our work, read a short portion, talked some more, and took questions from the viewers.
Many of these questions were about craft — how we came up with…
My first short story was written on brown paper using a second-hand Underwood typewriter I picked up at an antiques store. I felt so writerly, perched on my stool at my kitchen counter, banging away. My husband was studying for the bar exam, and had trouble concentrating with the noise I made. Luckily for him I wrote in spurts, lasting no more than fifteen minutes at a time. Then I’d get up and wander off, overwhelmed with doubt and a growing sense that I had no idea what I was trying to say and why it mattered.
I persisted. “Among…
