Brilliant writing can be found anywhere.
I read a review of M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 film The Village the late, great Roger Ebert’s last night. It’s an absolute brilliant piece of writing. Here’s an excerpt from…
Fathers don’t get to teach their children to swim anymore.
When I was a boy, my father taught me how to swim. I would cling to the edge of my grandfather’s pool, my father would push me off the edge…
Putt-Putt Perfection
The Friday and Saturday nights of my youth were often spent at a now-defunct Putt-Putt course in Framingham, Massachusetts. I was not seeking putting perfection as much as I…
Amazing Mommy
At the risk of making a broad and sweeping generalization, I believe that women are most often governed by a sense of duty and the guilt associated with failing to…
Exit the bigots
The Boy Scouts of America have lost six percent of their members since changing their policy on gay participants, the group recently announced. Some may think this is bad news.…
I had problems with the ending of The Lord of the Rings, but it had little to do with Frodo and Sam’s fate.
Quora recently asked the question: Would the Lord of the Rings have been more satisfying with a different ending. Specifically, what if the eagles hadn't rescued Frodo and Samwise from…
The greatest source of discontent in my marriage may be this Cadillac commercial, which I adore.
My wife and I do not fight. It’s not that we are opposed to fighting, and we’re certainly more than happy to argue a point when the time is right,…
The Moth: Deformed Cow and Moonlight Deer
The following is a story that I told at a Moth StorySLAM at Housing Works in New York City in July of last year. The theme of the night was…
Barbara Green is a literary hero in a small town in Italy. And in my heart.
I love this story. I received an email last week from a librarian in southern Italy. It reads:_________________________ Dear Matthew,We write from a public library of a very small town…
