Succeeding Outside the Academy Shines a Light on Failure, Too: A Conversation between Baker and Pryal
:: In short, with Succeeding Outside The Academy, I wanted to create the book that I needed when I was changing careers. This post is simultaneously published on Kelly J. Baker’s blog. From 2013 to 2015, Kelly J. Baker wrote a monthly column for Chronicle Vitae...
Women Write Los Angeles: Nine Great Novels about L.A., By Women
:: Here are nine dynamite books by women set in and around Los Angeles, recommended by a nine women writers who are dynamite in their own right. Don’t get me wrong: I love Raymond Chandler. Phillip Marlowe is outstanding, as is his latter-day reincarnation, Michael...
I Am a Writer Because of Mary Oliver
:: I am a writer because, when I was a sophomore in college, I lucked into a 6-person poetry writing workshop with Mary Oliver. She forced me to reckon with every word I put down on the page. I didn’t understand what words were until that writing workshop. I was...
How to Write About Your Kids without Being Awful
:: You can choose to write nothing about your kids, which is a fine choice, or you can write about your kids with utter kindness, respect, and gratitude. And even then, you must be careful. I have a deadline looming for my monthly column about motherhood, and I hit a...
How to Go Plastic Free AND Stay Pretty
:: I’m not here to change your mind. I just want to tell you how I figured some things out about getting rid of plastic, things that now, in retrospect, seem so simple, so obvious, about how to live a simpler life without plastic everywhere. We’ve always been fierce...
This Month’s Book Review: Writing the World We Want into Existence
:: The theme of this month’s book review column is writing the world we want into existence, or, writing the white supremacist patriarchy out of it.* Aimie K. Runyan – Daughters of the Night Sky When I first saw the cover of Runyan‘s Daughters of the Night Sky,...
If you were a lioness, what would you do?
:: I woke up this morning to the most bizarre news story. I mean, truly bizarre. The CNN headline read like this: “Lioness kills the father of her 3 cubs at Indianapolis Zoo.” It went on this way: After hearing a lot of noise in the lion pen, zoo personnel...
I Didn’t Want to Write About Rape
:: I really didn’t want to. But how can I not? How can I not? Someone has to write about rape. [CW: Rape, sexual assault, secondary trauma, etc.] There are so many people out there who can’t write about rape. But I can. I have. First, I wrote about being...01. About Me
Author, essayist, sometime law professor. Topics that will get me talking: mental health and disability, sexual violence, and making words happen. I want to be your friend, even if I have trouble showing it.
03. Letter
