Category: Books

When I told a friend recently that I write a poem a day for National Poetry Month and National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), she asked me how I find the inspiration for 30 poems. “It’s like rummaging around in a junk drawer,” I told her. “You’re bound to put your hands on something!” And sure enough,…

LitNuts shares the “Best of the Indies” with booklovers. From its Introduction, “On St. Patrick’s Day,” that recounts the early days of the COVID shutdown, to the final reflections on “Waiting for Morning” and finding joy again — the 50 essays in From My Button Box are as colorful and varied as treasures in a…

It’s funny-not funny that when two rogues attempted to carjack a man named Edward in New Haven on Christmas, he simply told them “I really don’t have time for this.” Probably not the safest response — he got away unharmed — but Bravo Edward! I mean, how often do we think that ourselves? I really…

Say what you will about TikTok and Facebook and the banality of the internet, it does provide us with a unique way to connect with one another. How else would we enjoy the beautiful humanity on display? Or see the world with fresh new eyes? As a matter of fact, my friend Judith Bruder and…

Now on Sale: MANIFEST (zine) #13 Ambiguous Grief In these post-pandemic days with the black veil of politics, wars, mass shootings, and climate change draped over our collective humanity, I suspect we are all suffering, in some way, from what clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Dr. Scott Eilers, calls “ambiguous grief.” It’s the realization that something…

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police…

The experience of reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein a few weeks ago is still haunting me, and I need to talk about this. First of all, the things we get wrong. You probably know that Frankenstein is the scientist — Victor Frankenstein — not the monster, right? Did you also know that the monster looks nothing…

Have you ever watched the BBC show Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch? It’s a fabulous, contemporary reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional character Sherlock Holmes. There is plenty of intrigue, suspense, and surprises — even in the retelling of stories that are more than 100 years old! One of my favorite features of the show…