Skip to content

Gift giving insurance: Appealing to the basest, most vile members of the human race

A recent New York Times piece by Ann Carrns describes the new business called WeddingGiftRefund.com. The site works like this. When you buy a wedding gift, you register on the Web site and upload an image of your receipt (you can also mail in the hard copy). You pay a fee of 8 percent of…

Read More

A song for all the crazy readers of the world

I’ve been a fan of the Canadian band Moxy Fruvous for a long time, and as a result, I assumed everyone else was as well. But when I  mentioned this song to an author at the Newburyport Literary Festival this weekend, she had never even heard of the band. I fell in love with this…

Read More

Gratitude journal: The boss lady

Tonight I am grateful for Brenda Copeland, my editor and friend. I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with Brenda at the Newburyport Literary Festival.  When we weren’t speaking on a panel or cavorting with other authors and editors, we spent the rest of the weekend dining and chatting about bookish things. We even…

Read More

The secret to early retirement

According to Gallup’s annual Economy and Personal Finance survey, the average non-retired American now expects to retire at age 67, up from age 63 a decade ago and age 60 in the mid-1990s. But the secret to early retirement is simple: Work more than one job. I retired from a five year career in banking…

Read More

A long period of self-imposed silence might be lifting

Three months ago, the Patriots lost the Super Bowl. On Thursday night they began drafting new players for the upcoming season. In the past couple weeks we’ve received the schedule for the 2012 season, paid for our season tickets and watched closely as the team began signing free agents. A lot of time has gone…

Read More

Gratitude journal: This

I’m in Newburyport, MA at a literary festival this weekend. Tonight I am grateful for snippets of video like this, which make the time away from my little girl a teensy bit easier.

Read More

The prize for this writing contest includes tears and humiliation

Parents and teachers often ask me about how my students so consistently fall in love with writing. The answer to this question could probably fill a book, but here is one tiny example of why my students tend to love writing so much: Each week I sponsor one or more writing contests in my classroom.…

Read More

Literary juxtaposition

Maybe you knew this existed already, but I did not. And while I have been told that it is actually a well written, well edited, fairly esteemed publication, I can’t get over the name just yet.

Read More