

Day 22 of 30 - March Poetry Update!
I seriously cannot believe the month is almost over! It's gone by *so* fast and I've done SO MUCH. I took a trip to sunny Los Angeles...


Poetry Needs You (I need you)
That sounds dramatic, but once, in a two-week visiting writer workshop at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Li-Young Lee (who might...


Honoring "A Poet of Memory": On the Death of Philip Levine
I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home – Philip Levine I never cry when...


Holiday Cards! Not Just for Your Grandma Anymore . . .
I love sending Christmas cards. Of course, none of them say “Christmas”* on them (because I am a lieutenant in the insidious liberal war...

Turducken, Black Friday, and Other Abhorrent Things Americans Attach to A Rather Abhorrent Holiday:
For the record, I don’t actually have anything against turducken. Or deep fried turkey. I think as red-blooded, vote-participating,...


Happy Halloween Everybody! A Little Musing on The Amazingness of The Nightmare Before Christmas
Ten days ago I posted about some of my favorite animated Halloween-related movies, and at the end I explained why Tim Burton’s The...


Because it's October and All I Want to Do is Watch Movies Under a Blanket with Tea and Pumpkin-shape
October is most definitely my favorite month. No, it's not my birth month, it's Halloween month. It is the month of black cats, witch...


8 Amazing Banned Books by Latin@ Authors
I know last week was banned book week, and I'm a little late to the party (not surprising for anyone who has ever invited me to...


Macondo, Mestizaje, and Fear, oh my!
This has been a year of change. And not minor changes like my hair color, or a different mole recipe, but of things ending (big things)....


Making Room for Excitement
I’m not going to lie (which is one of my sister’s favorite phrases, one that makes me wonder if she’s lying every time she doesn’t...