SHORT WORKS
Fiction
The Morrison Triplets
The Morrison Triplets
Harvard Review
Victoria, darling. I have to tell you, I began a letter to you not long after I arrived but then ripped it up this morning and am starting all over.
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments
Leon Literary Review
This was his city, but DP had only so many ways through it. He’d taken one path this morning—from his apartment building to Preble Street.
Chocolate Mice
Chocolate Mice
New England Review
When she was young, mothers—or her mother, at least—would speak of those bad girls, presumably pregnant, who left home at the first opportunity, but Monica wasn’t waiting that long.
The Revived Art of the Toy Theatre
The Revived Art of the Toy Theatre
Agni
Sometime during the night of December 2, an intruder entered the Theatrical Print Warehouse.
I Should Let You Go
I Should Let You Go
Freight Stories
And what had the cousins expected, back when they agreed to put Vaclav Havel’s press secretary up for a month?
A Wedding Story
A Wedding Story
Narrative Magazine
Rachel didn’t have any memory of chocolate eggs but here was one now.
Maine Night
Maine Night
Narrative Magazine
IT IS TWO in the morning when the phone rings. “Damn,” Joel says.
The Phenomenology of Religion
The Phenomenology of Religion
Gulf Coast
The first thing I did when I got to college was acquire a boyfriend.
Essays
Dedication
Dedication
Five Points
A for no-particular-reason decision: To take a lunch break.
French Accent Marks: A Beginner Offers a Primer
French Accent Marks: A Beginner Offers a Primer
Frenchly
For me, an American with a unique lack of talent for learning languages, the five French accent marks (also referred to as the diacritics) can be confusing.
Writing in a Time of Disaster
Writing in a Time of Disaster
The Writer’s Chronicle
Trouble, as we all know, forces a reordering of priorities, in a rather unhappy way. So long, petty concerns!
Frozen
Frozen
Decor Maine
I fell into writing about homes a decade ago. Not because of any special knowledge, but because a Maine shelter magazine took a flyer on me.
46: A Journal
46: A Journal
Narrative Magazine
Here’s what I forgot this week: The name of one of my favorite students, the name of that Carol Shields book I love, the name of that Willa Cather novel I love, the details of a story I read, just two days after I read it. This last failure was a real problem; I forgot the details while I was meeting with the student-author to discuss the story.
Last Things
Last Things
Narrative Magazine
My sister and I step briskly out of the greengrocer to get away from the men in line behind us who have told us, in great detail, what they’d like to do to us, where they intend to put certain parts of their bodies.
My Son’s Internet Rendezvous
My Son’s Internet Rendezvous
Salon
I took my 13-year-old boy across the country to meet a girl he knew from “Minecraft”—and it was totally worth it.
That’s Funny
That’s Funny
Fiction Writers Review
What’s funny in fiction–and what’s not.
The Dangerous Act of Writing
The Dangerous Act of Writing
Agni
Her boyfriend was very intense. I know, because he’d been my boyfriend before he’d been hers. This was at Yale in the early eighties
Jump Already
Jump Already
The Writer’s Chronicle
Having a useful artistic preoccupation is one thing, failing to move forward is another.