I’ve shared how, during Covid, my concentration suffered and I struggled to read for pleasure works longer than poems and short stories. Then, I was still teaching, and mornings while my family still slept I drank a solitary coffee in the predawn hush and read the Academy of American Poets’ emailed poem-a-day before opening my …
Shortly after we moved, my daughter wrote to Santa Claus. She worried she’d be getting coal and whether Santa knew our new address. ‘I’ve been trying my hardest to be good,’ she explained, and thanked him for ‘what you are doing for me and other children.’ She was 11. She’s twenty-five now. Along with a …
I remember meeting with my guidance counselor in seventh grade and, while I can’t recall their name or gender, I can recall knowing the answer to their VERY SERIOUS QUESTION but not whether it was the right answer. Which, when you are a somewhat bookish kid and also a pleaser, yanks your innards in a …
Middleswarth potato chips are to central Pennsylvania what cheesesteaks are to Philly. You can’t get them anywhere else, and nothing else compares. After college, trips back home always included pit stops to the Sheetz or turnpike hubs to stock up on their BBQ barrels, tangy sweet deliciousness to which I introduced my husband and then …
My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann 