Author Archives: admin

From The Wall Street Journal:

I’m guessing Sophie Hannah had a moment—one that came after reading a few too many self-help books on mindfulness, compassion, connection to all living creatures and nonattachment to negative thoughts. And in that moment she said to herself, “Oh, for God’s sake.”

Read Jenny’s piece on the Five Best comic novels in the Wall Street Journal.

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It must have been accumulating for months, the heap of trash in front of the house just around the bend from my place, but I didn’t notice. I knew that the owner of the little cottage, a very old man, had died, and I could see that someone was living there – a couple of pick-up trucks were parked in the driveway and lights were on in the house in the evenings. Renters? New owners? “I’m their neighbor, I should introduce myself,” I’d think when I drove by.

And then, one spring day, there it was: an incredible profusion of junk. The house sat close to the road with only a patch of front lawn, but the lawn was now buried in trash; not only that, the stuff spilled into the driveway and came right to the road. Four or five garbage cans, some upright and overflowing, some on their sides with empty cereal boxes and juice cartons spilling out. Plastic buckets strewn around, a clump of worn-out tires, many plastic milk jugs. Egg cartons, a roll of chicken wire, an upended rusty Weber grill. A beat-up plastic dog crate tossed on top of a tumble of logs.

Read the full piece in Martha’s Vineyard Magazine.

You should do a play. Maybe you live alone, and maybe you are not loving the way the light dies in late afternoon, when you know there are 15 more hours of aloneness ahead. Maybe you should spend some of that time with other humans, inside a warm theatre, putting together a show.

Maybe the play will be “The Snow Queen,” an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about Gerda, a stout-hearted little girl who takes off on a quest to rescue her friend Kai from the clutches of the creepy if dazzling Snow Queen, and who has many adventures along the way…

Read the full piece in the Vineyard Gazette.