Essays

The inner critic showed up with an editor’s visor and a clipboard. Everyone is writing about Odysseus, she said. Half right is not a note.

A preschool teacher declined to warn the children away from the swings: "Why? They only do it once." I gave my kids glass cups for the same reason. Discipline and disciple come from the same root — and the tuition rises with time.

A defibrillator, a forged excuse note, and what my mother understood about love that I didn't.

A number two graduate students invented in 1994, a man who should have had thirty more years, and a girl who was given no details at all.

A dog leash, a dishwasher drawer, and the only time Odysseus plans ahead.

In 2005 I visited South Africa, and as part of the trip we took a jeep up the Sani Pass into Lesotho, the highest plain in sub-Saharan Africa. There I met a woman who lived in an isolated rondavel with her

I grew up hearing Boudreaux jokes—usually from Uncle Bubba or my pawpaw, who’d been waiting all evening for someone to give him an opening. If you’re not from Southeast Louisiana, you might mistake them for Cajun versions of the

I have never once been late because I am disorganized. At least not according to me. There is always a reason. Traffic. Construction. A phone call. An emergency. Something unexpected. If I’m late, I can immediately produce a detailed explanation involving

My great-grandmother, Granny-Great, had a poem she loved to recite. It wasn’t a lecture; it was only four lines. There was an owl lived in an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke,

Ostensibly, Mark Twain once said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. He had a good publicist. Being friends with a writer is a dicey proposition. Sooner or later, you’