Talk to a friend if you’re feeling depressed, they say. Eat well, get enough sleep. Take a walk in nature. The closest I get to nature these days is in a nearby office park with some nice landscaping. I walk early in the morning, when the parking lot is empty. It’s mercifully quiet—once I get […]
Words From The Other Side
The Thing About Forgiveness
“Everybody has their shit.” -Karen Stefano The thing about forgiveness is, without it, we’d all be screwed. True story. Think about it for a minute, or for or a second, if you can. Think about all those times you desperately needed forgiveness. Or maybe, if you’ve been on the opposite side—the one who has heroically […]
On Reading Challenges
On her Facebook page, author Ania Ahlborn confessed feeling baffled by people who read more than a dozen books a month. (Did you notice the name drop? Yeah, I don’t know her IRL, though.) Her “confusion” stems only partly from the mere fact of time and how does anyone have that much. Mostly, she wonders […]
An Open Letter to Literary Fiction Snobs
Dear Literary Fiction Snobs, How dare you? How fucking dare you? How dare you look down your noses at us humor writers and roll your eyes. How dare you whisper behind our backs — or say to our faces — about how our work is somehow less important than your touch-the-heart agony porn? I’m tired […]
Privileges
Two stories really lit up my social media feeds last week: the first was the college bribery scandal that ensnared many rich elites, most notably actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. People paid tens of thousands of dollars to get their precious darlings admitted to college with false credentials, including skills at sports they didn’t […]
The Thing About the F Word
The thing about the F word is you don’t want to be called it. You don’t want to be called flakey, that is. But the thing is, there are an awful lot of flakey people out there. I’m sure you’re not one of them, and so I’m not talking about you here. Just like human […]
