There is a feeling of absolute finality about the end of a flight through the darkness. The whole scheme of things you have lived acutely, during hours of roaring sound in an element altogether detached from the world, ceases abruptly. The plane noses groundward, the wings strain to the firmer cushion of earthbound air, wheels […] Read more

Even in these enlightened days when women are CEOS and cabinet members, many still feel uncomfortable with blatant displays of power. Women are often afraid to ask for what they want because they confuse assertion with aggression. Aggression implies violation. When you act aggressively, the other person will feel angry or taken advantage of. Assertion, […] Read more

I listened, but if a wolf was broadcasting from those hills, he was not on my wavelength. George, who had been sleeping on the crest of the esker, suddenly sat up, cocked his ears forward, and pointed his long muzzle toward the north. After a minute or two, he threw back his head and howled; […] Read more

The small boys came early to the hanging. It was still dark when the first three or four of them sidled out of the hovels, quiet as cats in their felt boots. A thick layer of fresh snow covered the little town like a new coat of paint, and theirs were the first footprints to […] Read more

Round Bird Can’t Fly is a children’s story about a bird with a large body and little wings. An ostrich! This is a good one if you want to try narrating a children’s tale. Round Bird has a big round body with little wings and can’t fly. He wants to fly and play with the […] Read more

Without my dad, this island feels very different. The two of us would come here for three weeks during the summer. We would curl up in sleeping bags inside a little fishing shack on top of dusty air mattresses. Dad would point out the constellations every night as we lay back in the sweet, long […] Read more

I don’t know how long it had been observing me, but now it peered at me with some alarm. Then the little animal–only slightly larger than a house cat–threw back its head, gave a single, shrill bark, and disappeared in a trot over a ridge. I chased after it over the hummocky tundra, but when […] Read more

The first twigs are thin, supple, and green. They will bend into a complete circle but not break. They had a hopefulness that was delicate shooting from lilac and forsythia bushes intending to change only in whipping style. They beat us differently in the spring. The pain of a winter cold stood in contrast to […] Read more

#1: Pioneers were attracted to the vast, open lands of the west and brought with them new agricultural techniques. There were 563 universities and colleges in the United States by 1870 and nearly a thousand by 1910. Everyone wanted the goods and services this educated industrial nation produced. Literary traditions in colonial America sped up […] Read more