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Guest post by Scott Nadelson Five or six years ago, when I was living alone after a difficult break-up, I had a lot of time on my hands and filled it in part by following the news religiously, reading a dozen websites and blogs every morning before sitting down to write, picking up the local…

Guest post by Carol Keeley We land and see palm trees, which baffles me. It’s my first trip to New Orleans. For some reason, I hadn’t pictured palm trees. Immediately, we see houses scarred with post-Katrina markings–the number of bodies, stranded pets, when it was searched. Some are the quadrants in sticky red–orderly, informational; some…

Guest post by Bridget Lowe In high school I bought a lime green velvet pea coat from the garage sale of an elderly woman who lived up the street. Why she owned it in the first place I don’t know, as it was Jimi Hendrix-worthy in its boldness. The coat was huge on me and…

Guest post by Scott Nadelson I live less than a mile from the Oregon State Hospital, which for many years was known as the Oregon State Insane Asylum. There aren’t many internationally famous landmarks in this sleepy capital city, but film buffs all over the world know it as the setting of Miloš Forman’s 1975…

Guest post by Carol Keeley There’s a famous exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, in which Fitzgerald prescribes moderation, invoking Flaubert as tutorial. To suggest restraint as ballast for one who tips toward excess is fair advice. But to say it’s superior is a brawl-starter. “Don’t forget, Scott,” replies Wolfe, “that a great…

Guest post by Scott Nadelson My ancestors emigrated from Sweden to Minsk sometime in the eighteenth century, most likely to escape restrictive anti-Jewish property laws. But there’s a legend in my family that accounts for the move differently. According to the story, which is usually told with a smirk that suggests no one takes it…

Guest post by Carol Keeley When Lisa told me, joyfully, that they’d decided to have the baby at home with a midwife, I took a breath before chorusing support. Because I love her, I resisted blurting my worries. “But you’re forty-one and this is your first baby. Are you sure?” It was clear she was…

Guest post by Scott Nadelson The first time I saw Be Here to Love Me, the documentary about songwriter Townes Van Zandt, I was in rough shape. This was in 2005. I’d recently gone through a devastating break-up, which left me reeling and broke, living in an attic apartment whose ceiling was infested with squirrels….

Guest post by Carol Keeley   My friend Pip sent an intriguing note recently. He’d just finished reading A Short History of Nearly Everything and had a taste for something classic, so pulled Homer from his shelves. The book was part of a library his dad had accumulated, Pip wrote. “I opened The Iliad and…