A Writer’s Road: The Work-Work Balance

I spend most of my working hours running the non-profit that I started called Writing Through. I love the work and I think that it is the greatest gift I can give to the world (other than my wonderful children, of course). But I also love writing – poems,...

A Writer’s Road: Missing Cambodia

I have realized that this is the first winter in a decade that I’m not traveling to Cambodia. As I sit in my office looking out at the snow, the cold underlines my sense of loss at not seeing my old friends and students, not seeing the browns and greens of the...

Why Poetry?

Seamus Heaney Amanda Gorman Inauguration Day was an extraordinary day of change and hope in the United States. It was a day filled with emotions, dreams and words……many, many words, and so many of them arrived as poetry. Within minutes of Amanda Gorman’s...

A Writer’s Road: A Poem for the New Year

Happy New Year everyone! A recording of my poem for the new year is just below, but first, in case you didn’t see the post I wrote on social media on December 31st, here is my toast to the year finally behind us, and the one just starting: Here’s to A jab in the...

A Writer’s Road: What I Read in 2020

What a year. I’ve documented a lot of it in this blog, but now it’s time to write an annual post which has nothing whatsoever to do with the pandemic (ostensibly), namely my list of what I read during the year. The list comes with its usual caveat that...

A Writer’s Road: Taking Risks

One of the big ideas that we discuss in Writing Through workshops is taking risks: What is a risk? Are there good and bad risks? How do you decide if a risk is good or bad and how do you choose what to do? When choosing, when do you listen to the advice of others, and...