On Writing Myself Alive

First, I wrote Leyla. She was a teen I thought my own teen girls might like. Leyla was for them. A Turkish girl, wandering the old city, who falls into an epic adventure to uncover a secret passed among women for two millennia. As she learns to embrace her own strength, she must also accept…

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Confessions of a Modern Nomad

“Working with our life circumstances is how we render reality perfected. Perfection is unattainable. ‘Perfected’ is possible.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach from Simple Abundance The cup of coffee my husband left for me on the nightstand is lukewarm now, reminding me I was supposed to actually get out of bed half an hour ago. I…

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The Raw State

My initial response to the question Where do I belong? was flippant. I’ve never really felt like I didn’t belong. My 20-year-old self wouldn’t have given this question another thought. But in the ten years since age twenty, I’ve started to recognize that when I give something a simple response, it’s usually because a more…

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Rejection Slips

“You do not write the best you can for the sake of art, but for the sake of returning your talent increased to the invisible God, to use or not use as He sees fit.” –Flannery O’Connor I remember sitting in the post office parking lot that day, the heat of mid May filling my…

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