I frequently blog about what I have read, sometimes analyzing it as a writer, sometimes reacting as a reader.
Reading Notes: Dipo Faloyin’s Africa is not a country
I am so grateful for Dipo Faloyin’s book Africa is not a country: Notes on a bright continent, written in a way that felt as if I could hear the author’s voice telling me stories, charming…
Keep readingWriting as a way of living, not for a living
There is a reason I named my website Reader. Writer. It’s because that’s who I am, what I am. For me, there is no joy greater than moments spent immersed in the words, reading or writing.…
Keep readingReading Notes: Vicious is my middle name
I’ve chosen to spend most of my life in a small college town in the mountains of North Carolina, and despite the understandable yen to explore the world in my youth (which I did), I have…
Keep readingReading Notes: Pop by Robert Gipe
I finally finished Pop, the third book of the series by Robert Gipe, and am still sorting my thoughts on this book and the series as a whole. This story stands on its own, but is…
Keep readingReading Notes: Weedeater by Robert Gipe
Earlier this year, I posted some thoughts on Trampoline, the first in a related set of books by Robert Gipe. I recently finished the second book Weedeater, and I’d like to share a few thoughts again.…
Keep readingAsk again another time.
You asked me to tell you what I believe, and I thought I knew exactly what I would say. I believe in kindness, or some might call it empathy/compassion. Not necessarily the so-called random acts of…
Keep readingFont of wisdom
Today I want to kvetch a bit about fonts. You see, I am super partial to serif fonts. To be honest, I love all fonts, even the ones that make me shudder at the thought of…
Keep readingLife Inside/Outside
I set goals, almost daily. Since I teach time management tips to college students, you might say I set goals professionally. One of my goals was to read a poem or two every day, and right…
Keep readingFast reads vs slow reads
I’ve been working my way (slowly) through the back episodes of the very helpful and entertaining Print Run podcast. In a March 2017 episode, Laura and Erik discussed the vagueness and general inaccuracy of the category…
Keep readingReading Notes on Robert Gipe’s Trampoline
I’ve been finding time, or making time, to read more often, and my best friend gifted me with three books by Robert Gipe, set in a coal-mining mountain region somewhere in eastern Kentucky. By a crow’s…
Keep readingHolding space for emergent occasions
I’ve been itching to write posts on light topics, to immerse myself in the inconsequential, but I have a few thoughts gnawing at me, like a splinter that needs to be removed.I just need to take…
Keep readingMy Goodreads Review of the novel 2020
As a starting point, it was impossible to suspend disbelief when I discovered this book centers on a character two parts buffoon and one part dictator who believes he owns our country thanks to a few…
Keep readingSunlight Press!
I am excited to say that Sunlight Press just published a flash fiction piece I wrote called All-Star. I wrote it many years ago in an online flash fiction workshop taught by Pamelyn Casto. Funny, or…
Keep readingListening Notes: 1619 podcast, Episode 5, Part 2
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/podcasts/1619-slavery-farm-loan-discrimination.html “The Land of Fathers, Part 2” is the last episode of the 1619 podcast series. Phew. This podcast picks up where it left off by highlighting the weight of the grief and loss experienced by…
Keep readingListening Notes: 1619 Episode 5
I hope I don’t sound as impatient as I felt, but the New York Times *finally* issued another episode of the 1619 series, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1619/id1476928106?i=1000452394193 This one was called Episode 5: The Land of Our Fathers, Part 1. Yet…
Keep reading1619 Project: Final articles
With this post, I bring to a close my endeavor to read, reflect, and spotlight the articles of the 1619 Project. There are several final essays worth reading: One of the final essays, “Their Ancestors Were…
Keep reading1619 Project: Elliott & Hughes
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/19/magazine/history-slavery-smithsonian.html In another post, I spotlight Nikita Stewart’s concern that our schools are not teaching the history of slavery adequately or appropriately. One resource that might help is provided by Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes, entitled:…
Keep reading1619 Project: Stewart
For some reason, I had difficulty finding this article the first few times I tried. I think perhaps I kept clicking on another worthy article, that I will discuss in my next post. So feel free…
Keep reading1619 Project: Lee
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/racial-wealth-gap.html In one of the final essays in the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, Trymaine Lee writes that “A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white America.” Again…
Keep reading1619 Project: Muhammad
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/sugar-slave-trade-slavery.html Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s essay is titled “The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery.” As always, my goal is to highlight these articles rather than…
Keep reading1619 Project: Stevenson
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/prison-industrial-complex-slavery-racism.html I continue to read, reflect, and shine a spotlight on the essays in the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. Author of Just Mercy (and to my mind, a saint walking amongst us) Bryan Stevenson…
Keep reading1619 Project: Interlandi
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/universal-health-care-racism.html Today I am reflecting on the article in the 1619 Project by Jeneen Interlandi titled, “Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer has everything to do with race,” as well as…
Keep reading1619 Project: Kruse
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html I continue to read, reflect, and shine a spotlight on the essays in the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. Princeton University professor Kevin Kruse, who I know as That-History-Guy-on-Twitter, wrote an essay titled: “What…
Keep reading1619 Project: Morris
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/music-black-culture-appropriation.html I am the type to read the book before I see the movie, and I tried to do something similar with the podcasts for the 1619 series, which both encompass and differ from the essays…
Keep reading1619 Project: Poems and Stories
I continue to read, reflect, and shine a spotlight on the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. Typically I rely on the titles as a kind of summary for the essays, and I pull out a…
Keep reading1619 Project: Bouie
I continue to read, reflect, and shine a spotlight on the work of the 1619 Project. Today I read the work by Jamelle Bouie, titled “America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some…
Keep reading1619 Project: Villarosa’s article
I continue to read, reflect, and spotlight pieces in the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. Today I read Linda Villarosa’s article entitled, Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are…
Keep reading1619 Project: Desmond’s Essay
Today I continue to read, reflect, and shine a spotlight on the 1619 Project, a series of articles in the New York Times Magazine. Today I read Matthew Desmond’s essay titled “If you want to understand…
Keep reading1619 Project: Hannah-Jones
It is my firm belief that any time Ms. Nikole Hannah-Jones has something to say, I need to listen. Indeed, she says everything that needs to be said, with both precision and artistry, in the first…
Keep readingHistory versus Fairy Tales
So my goal is to explain what resonated with me in the introduction to the Times’ 1619 Project (which I intend to continue to read/reflect upon in a few upcoming blog posts). Here, again, is what…
Keep readingThe 1619 Project in the New York Times Magazine
One of my goals has been to return to a special series in the New York Times Magazine called the 1619 Project published in August 2019 and use my blog as a place to reflect more…
Keep readingReading Notes, Ida: A Sword Among Lions
So I have finished Paula Giddings’ biography of Ida B. Wells, Ida: A Sword Among Lions. At 659 pages, it is positively succinct in contrast to the Douglass biography. The time it took to read these…
Keep readingReading Notes: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
I am halfway through this biography now, so don’t spoil the ending for me ;). I have been tempted to comment often as I read, even if I fear I will reveal gaps in my knowledge…
Keep readingOrigin Stories
I have been on something of a reading tear, binging on several novels that I had on my TBR (to be read) list. At the same time, I have been working steadily through Paula Giddings Ida:…
Keep readingDon’t trust anyone over 40
As someone on the other side of 40, I only partly mean this title. I have felt despair and moments of fury when millennials disregard the insights and experiences of those who have been in a…
Keep readingReading notes: Warcross duology by Marie Lu
During my December of reading, I especially enjoyed Marie Lu’s Warcross and Wildcard, a YA/SF duology set in a near future in which a full sensory video game has become central to daily life for most…
Keep readingReading notes: Kathy Fish’s Wild Life
I have been lax about posting notes on my reading, though I did dedicate extra time in December to read more. It was, by the way, lovely, though I also had one of those moments when…
Keep readingReading notes: The Fifth Risk
What is most remarkable about Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk is not that he makes us aware of more ways that the installation of a U.S. administration indifferent to the responsibilities of government is a threat…
Keep readingReading Notes
Announcing in this quasi public space my reading goals and delays seems to have aided me in picking back up with my reading. I finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Foer’s book…
Keep readingOne way to turn off instant replay.
My first year of teaching middle school was tough. I’m pretty sure I made every mistake possible. And more than once. I tend to analyze and revisit situations after the fact, hoping to figure out what…
Keep readingSo many books, so little time
I just peeked at my options for e-books at the local library, and I saw, again, how much there is to read. I came close to checking one out, but I hate it when the due…
Keep readingReading notes: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
So I am scratching out moments, minutes really, for reading, and I am returning to finish Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which continues to blow me away. I suppose I experience fewer reading…
Keep readingReading as a writer.
Here’s what I know: When I read, it sparks something for me as a writer. New ideas arise that do not seem to have anything to do with what I’ve read. Just the act of reading…
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reader. writer. 