The beginning of a journey to forgiveness — I found the letters in the bottom of the old sea chest underneath piles of frayed and pilled sweaters. The bundle was about four inches thick, tied in the same pink and blue satin ribbon I remembered seeing as a child the last time I explored the content of this…

A conversation with my book. Dear Book, I’m sorry I haven’t written until now. Six years we wrestled with each other, and I never properly introduced myself. We both attended the same parties. I’d spot you off in the distance and feign not seeing you, pretend I didn’t know the…

Memories of parents taken before my coming of age. — My heart is heavy with her absence as if it were yesterday. Mum has been gone forty-six years. I do not have a well of memory to draw from, to drink the life of her and fill me with a sense of who I am through who she was. Her…

Here’s the thing. I’m wondering how it’s gonna get done. How will the words evolve into something organic after messing around with them for so long? How will I come to the end? How will I give the reader something to hold on to after they’ve left the page? What…

Nana, my father’s mother, lived with us in an apartment over the kitchen; what used to be maid’s quarters back in the day. Narrow stairs led up to her private enclave. She had a formal dining room separate from her apartment; a circular room with floor to ceiling windows looking…

The Shame that Binds Me I have not experienced great success or failure in my life. The gaze turned on me with the triumph of one or the other. Risk aversion they call it. I do not want to be seen. …