The Eighth Loser

I originally submitted this to my friend Rich Chizmar of Cemetery Dance Publications to be included as a guest essay for his Stephen King Revisited project. But after talking to him and getting his blessing (and since he's still a long way from revisiting IT), I decided the timing was right to share it with you…

On my bookshelf – April

I need to step up my reading game. Once upon a time (pre-smartphone app distraction is the best I can figure), I was constantly reading. I loved Goodreads' annual reading challenge (and still do) - I can keep track of what books I've read during the course of the year AND it compiles all the…

“The first day of the rest of your life”

Well, I don't know about you, but I could have done without the excitement of the last month. It wasn't the cheerful, Christmas-season kind of excitement either. I spent most of December in the throes of an existential crisis, trapped in a fugue of worry and second guessing and sleepless nights and being thrown so…

Making time

So we're in the lull between holidays, the few days when you've finished cleaning up from Thanksgiving but haven't yet gotten sucked into the chaos of Christmas. (Well, if you're anything like me, you haven't.) This is the eye of the storm, the brief reprieve before you end up buried under an avalanche of wrapping paper and tinsel and…

Book review: Love Style Life by Garance Dore

One thing to know about me: I love fashion. Loooooove it. I have for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I had subscriptions to Teen and Seventeen magazines, and as I got older those turned into Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. I would spend hours pouring over them, studying them, in awe of…

Book review: The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

It's not an exaggeration to say that buying my first Stephen King book was a rite of passage that helped mark the end of my childhood and the start of adulthood. I wish I could remember the exact circumstances behind that purchase. I do know that I'd gone from camping out in kids' section of our local Waldenbooks to wandering…

Old friends, we meet again

In case you missed the post where I professed my love for the printed word, I'm a reader. The voracious kind. Insatiable. I have stacks and stacks of books checked out from my local library that will eventually be returned unread because I just cannot physically read that many (oh, but I long to). My own collection has exploded beyond the…

My zen

Some people meditate as a means of finding their zen. Some people hit the gym, practice yoga, or go for a long hike through the woods. Some cook, some paint or sketch, some write. But the way I find my balance has always been through reading. It's my first love, the thing that best defines me and makes…

If not now, when?

Call it a mid-life crisis (I guess I'm old enough now to have one of those), but I've been thinking a lot lately about legacies. Mine specifically, and whether or not I even have one. Being a mother is definitely not in the cards for me, so physical progeny is out. I enjoy what I…