“Now?” I shook my head. “Now the world feels too raw. Too dangerous. I can’t pretend that hate is just another opinion. I can’t shrug it off when someone makes a joke about race, or gender, or pronouns. It’s not funny anymore. It never really was, but I used to act like it was. I…

My Chin Hair Has a First NameA book of menopause poetry Enjoy such poems as:I close thine legs upon thy sneezeSmelly sweat, smelly sweat. What have you been doing?Head, shoulders knees and hips, knees and hips

Wednesday, November 27, 2024 As Sophia and I walked our loop at Liberty Park, fall leaves crunching beneath our shoes, our conversation flowed as easily as our strides. “You ever feel like everyone else figured their career out by the time they were thirty?” I asked, tugging my sleeve up to my elbows. “And here…

When Amanda meets Sophia, their connection is instant—two women drawn together by wit, warmth, and an uncanny ability to understand each other’s hearts. Their friendship quickly becomes a refuge from loneliness, politics, and the constant noise of modern life. But one morning, everything changes. Left reeling and searching for answers, Amanda begins to write—to remember,…

A participle is a word that functions like an adjective and also shows verb features like tense and voice. Participles are modifiers, so they must have a noun to modify.  A dangling participle is one that has been left out in the cold with no noun to modify. For example: While strolling through the kitchen, the…

My husband and I were jogging in the woods one day recently. (I use the term jogging loosely because I’m still recovering from an injury, and running and I aren’t getting along very well.) At one point, I made some comment. I don’t even remember what it was. He stopped, looked at me, and said,…

A split infinitive is when you separate “to” and its verb. Here’s an example: She wanted to comfortably sleep on the new bed. A better option would be: She wanted to sleep comfortably on the new bed.

I’ll never forget the day my mother (a former English teacher) had me tell my sixth-grade teacher she was using “lain” incorrectly. Instead of reinventing the wheel, here’s a little help from Writer’s Digest. In the past tense, “lay” becomes “laid” (Last week, I laid down the law and told my brother it was inappropriate for…