To prepare for an upcoming writing retreat in France led by my friend Summer Hardinge, I decided to read Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel. I had heard it was wonderful, but I didn’t expect such an erudite, subtle, witty, and philosophically wide-ranging treatment of...

It’s always tough to write about family. Well, not the writing part—the publishing part. Feelings can get hurt. Relationships can get damaged. Is it worth it?

This was the dilemma I wrestled with recently when Rev. Russell Heiland, senior minister at Unity of Fairfax, i...

Every now and then I find a writing prompt that is so much fun it requires wider sharing. Mood Ring, from Writing from the Senses: 59 Exercises to Ignite Your Creativity and Revitalize Your Writing by Laura Deutsch, is just such a prompt. In this exercise you will use...

The first thing I want to say about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear is “buy it.” Her advice is honest, authentic, encouraging, insightful, witty, and resourced, for she draws on the wisdom of not only her experience but those of writer friend...

Like most writers, I am a bibliophile. I don’t say this lightly: every room in my house, including bathrooms, has books piled and waiting. I even wrote an article about my “book habit” years ago for the Washington Post!

I am currently visiting family in Maine (fortuito...