Summer 2023
So grateful to have been named a 2023 Jack Hazard Fellow, and especially honored to be included in this year’s cohort of incredible writers, all of whom are making art while balancing the demands of high-school teaching. Because of this fellowship, I’ll be able to spend the summer continuing work on my novel-in-progress, Hollow Arts. Thank you to the New Literary Project for the invaluable gifts of time and support!
January 4, 2023
Tremendous, overdue thanks to Writing By Writers for welcoming me to the Tomales Bay writing conference as a fiction fellow this fall. I was able to learn so much in workshop with Pam Houston, and in community with countless other amazing writers. I remain deeply grateful for the gifts of time, focus, and connection. And I miss these golden hills more than I can say.
May 27, 2022
Still pinching myself: this spring, I was fortunate enough to be awarded support from both the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Mass Cultural Council. To get any vote of confidence in the middle of writing a new novel is so meaningful, the sort of thing that boosts you a little closer to what sometimes seems like an impossible end. But to get that boost from two organizations I deeply admire for their mission means even more. Thank you, Sustainable Arts Foundation and Mass Cultural Council!
March 18, 2022
I’m incredibly grateful to the Ucross Foundation for hosting me during a writing residency this month (my first since pre-Covid times!), where I’ve been working on my latest novel. To convey the creative and restorative magic of this place is impossible, especially for a parent who has been trying to write during the pandemic. But I will let this photo, shot on my morning walk to my writing studio, attempt to convey it anyway. Thank you, Ucross!
February 10, 2021
Grateful to have a new story up at Joyland, one I wrote when I was experimenting with angry fairy tales. It's not really a feel-good story because, you know, anger. Also fairy tales. But I’m happy it’s out in the world nevertheless.
November 11, 2020
What a joy to hear that “Helen in Texarkana” was named a Distinguished Story in this year’s Best American Short Stories. (My writer dream since I was a teenager!) Too bad the editors got my first name wrong … but given that this story is about invisible badass alter-egos named Helen, the mistake is actually sort of perfect. FYI that I’ll be adopting Helen McQuade as my pseudonym for all badass activities going forward. If you have concerns, you may refer them to Helen.
September 15, 2020
So grateful to be returning to my classroom this morning, even if it’s in a strange remote world. And while I know algorithms are fickle beasts, I’m doubly happy that this good news arrived today from Amazon, for however long it lasts. Heading into fall with more hope and optimism than I’ve had in a while, and in 2020, that matters a whole lot. Best wishes to all of you for a wonderful start to the school year.
April 29, 2020
It’s a weird time to be sharing good news. But American Literary Review just put out this gorgeous issue that my essay gets to live in, and I’m far too grateful not to share it here. Many, many thanks to the ALR editors, and to Reyna Grande for selecting this essay for their 2019 nonfiction prize. And thanks also to my writing group, and to my husband and son, for the courage and blessings I needed to write about family.
This isn’t exactly a pandemic essay. It’s more about what it means to live on a boarding school campus, and how that dovetails with being a parent and being a writer. But I’ve been thinking a lot during this quarantine about what home means, and how sometimes the most mysterious people in the world are the ones we live with. I hope some of what’s here speaks to your quarantine days, too. (And if not, I hope you’ll stay for the flying squirrels.)
You can read the essay here.
April 26, 2020
Had a blast at this weekend’s virtual version of the Newburyport Literary Festival. If you missed all the amazing panels yesterday, fear not — they have another round of amazing livestreams coming up on May 3. Go register at the link above! And if you want to hang out belatedly with me, Peter Orner, and Myfanwy Collins in the meantime, here we are talking about trauma, short stories, and the magic of Lucky Charms.
April 13, 2020
Thrilled that the wonderful folks at the Newburyport Literary Festival are planning to stream events online next week in a virtual festival! If you’re around on the afternoon of Saturday, April 25, and care to join the fun, you can register here for my webinar with Peter Orner (whose collection Maggie Brown and Others should be on your reading list immediately if it’s not already). We’ll be Zooming about trauma, restlessness, and the art of the short story. Come join us!
April 12, 2020
These days, I rarely find myself wearing anything other than pandemic PJs. But my book got a gorgeous new outfit for its paperback release! So many thanks to the incredible team at Custom House, especially Mumtaz Mustafa, for this beautiful cover. Pub date is July 14, but you can pre-order here or through your favorite independent bookstore!
March 22, 2020
I’m sorry to share that the readings and events I had lined up at the Newburyport Literary Festival and other locations this spring have been cancelled due to COVID-19.
As I'm sure is the case for all of you, I'm trying to adjust to this strange new world of isolation, uncertainty, and grief. And as usual, poetry is proving to be one of the most helpful tools getting me through it. If you happen to read this post in March, I hope you’ll head over to my Instagram page and participate in the Poetrypocalypse March Madness Tournament I’ve set up there and on Facebook. (Why? Because March Madness was cancelled, and because poetry is more awesome than basketball anyway, and because right now we all need more poems in our lives that speak to this strange new moment.) Wherever you are in the world, reading this: love and health to all of you.
January 24, 2020
For many years now, I've been teaching a creative nonfiction workshop despite rarely writing it myself. Fiction has always felt like a much safer, anonymous space for me to write into. But I adore teaching this class, and my students so routinely inspire me with their courage and candidness in their personal essays, that I've been prompted to write more nonfiction over the past year. And I'm so incredibly grateful to them (and to American Literary Review) for this very cool thing that happened as a result.
December 26, 2019
Amid a time of year already packed with gratefulness, I was thrilled to learn that I’ll be spending part of 2020 as a Fellow-in-Residence at the Women’s International Study Center in Santa Fe, where I’ll be working on a new novel. So many thanks to the WISC Advisory Committee and Board of Directors, and to Director Jordan Young, for giving me this opportunity for writing and reflection within an incredible community of women. Happy 2020, everyone. I hope your new year is dawning just as bright.
December 15, 2019
Thank you to the Washington Independent Review of Books for naming Tell Me Who We Were a best book of 2019!
December 4, 2019
So grateful to the folks at The Story Prize for inviting me to post an image on their Instagram that relates to my book in some way. This is the picture that inspired the whole thing. (Enthusiastic thanks to the wonderful family of Wynn Bullock, who so generously gave me permission to share it.)
September 29, 2019
What a joy to spend yesterday surrounded by local high school writers — amazing teenagers willing to give up their Saturday to be in the company of fellow artists at the Andover Young Writers’ Symposium. So many thanks to everyone who attended from Lawrence, Lowell, Andover, and other local schools; to the mind-blowingly dedicated students who organized it (along with my rockstar colleague Corrie Martin, whose literary heart is a huge one); and to all the participants, adults and kids alike, who reminded me that the best part of writing is that you never have to stop learning it.
Pictured: a panel with fellow workshop leaders and local writers Yaneris Collado, Harlym 1Two5 (Jamele Adams), and Amaryllis Lopez. Not pictured: the amazing Susan Choi, who blew us all away with her reading from Trust Exercise.
Go read it. Now.
September 27, 2019
It meant a lot to me, as someone whose teaching and work on trauma literature was shaped so fundamentally by Toni Morrison, to be able to share this memory of her from my time at Princeton. Thanks to the PAW for publishing it.
September 16, 2019
So I was pretty psyched when I heard my article for TIME Magazine was going to appear in the print issue this week. But when I found out Margaret Atwood was going to be on one of the covers, I might have lost my mind a little due to proximity to genius. (Also, I just read in the cover story that Atwood wrote under the pseudonym Shakesbeat Latweed when she was in college and I didn't think I could love her any more than I already do and I was wrong.)
September 2, 2019
“This book prompts me to define it by what it is not. It is not a story to rush. It’s not chick lit. It’s not a beach read. Not a whodunit.... This is a slim volume to ponder, full of writing to savor, to glean meaning from.” Thank you to the Washington Independent Review of Books for this thoughtful review not just of what my book is, but of how different kinds of books work, and how they sometimes ask for different kinds of reading.
August 22, 2019
So I wrote a thing about how wonderful my students are, and also how we adults are breaking the world, and ultimately how literature can save the day. And I am wildly grateful to TIME for letting me shout it from their virtual rooftops.
August 15, 2019
Beyond thrilled to hear that this review of Tell Me Who We Were will be included in Publishers Weekly’s upcoming issue!
August 6, 2019
This fall marks the twelfth year I will have taught my course on trauma literature at Phillips Academy, a course that always ends up piquing the curiosity of others. Why, among all the wonderful topics in literature, was I drawn to this one? This essay is about why. Many thanks to LitHub for publishing it.
July 16, 2019
Thank you women.com for listing TMWWW as a Best Book of July! “Tell Me Who We Were feels like it was locked away, waiting to be released when the timing was right.” That quote gets my book and I love it so much. I’m going to pretend that’s why it took me so many years to write it.
July 14, 2019
Minneapolis stealing my heart, as usual, this time with a beautiful review in the Star Tribune Sunday edition. “Captivating … an insightful, compassionate book — a truly wonderful collection.”
July 2, 2019
Tell Me Who We Were publishes today! You can buy your copy of the hardcover, audiobook, or e-book from your desired retailer here. In the meantime, so happy to see this little book making its way in the world with praise in summer book roundups on Bustle, LitHub, and Refinery29!
June 30, 2019
So happy with the review in this Sunday’s edition of the Boston Globe:
May 11, 2019
Thrilled to share that “Ten Kinds of Salt,” from Tell Me Who We Were, appears today in one of my all-time favorite magazines, Shenandoah. Thank you to the amazing editor there, Beth Staples, for including me in this gorgeous issue!
May 2, 2019
That time when you had so much fun nerding out with your writer-friend about feminism and Game of Thrones that you were both like, what if we do something crazy and pitch this conversation to the Washington Post?
Check out our article at WaPo’s The Lily! So many thanks to Courtney Sender for her incessant feminist brilliance, and to Nneka McGuire for her wonderful editorial work on this piece!
May 1, 2019
First review! My whole heart belongs to Booklist.
