“Parenting is Savage.” – Fault Lines
If there was ever a sentence spoken by a character that sums up a story in three words, "parenting is savage," is it. Plus, I don’t know of a parent…
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January 31, 2022
“Disrupt old patterns.” – The Music of Bees
In Eileen Garvin’s debut novel, The Music of Bees, three lonely strangers grapple with grief and loss. Stuck in their own sadness, they’ve lost the will to connect meaningfully with…
December 14, 2021
“Normal is a terrible thing to aspire to—aim higher.” – The Guncle
The character in Steven Rowley’s book, The Guncle, unexpectedly gains guardianship of his young niece and nephew for the summer. His advice, “normal is a terrible thing to aspire to,…
November 18, 2021
“Guilt grabs me by the ears and shakes my face.”
This line in Laurie Frankel’s new book, One Two Three, didn’t strike me because I have something to feel guilty about. I’m not harboring guilt over an enormous secret, or…
October 21, 2021
“An unfinished jigsaw of a human.”
In Matt Haig’s, The Midnight Library, the main character searches within herself to determine what defines a fulfilling life. According to my kindle, the line “an unfinished jigsaw of a…
September 21, 2021
“When we migrate, we murder those we leave behind.”
I am the parent who pays close attention to my children’s required summer reading. I do it because it gives me a chance to engage them in a conversation about…
August 9, 2021
“Dogs and books: two excellent defenses against solitude and despair.” -Oona Out of Order
This great line from Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore, jumped off the page, and had me screaming YES (in my mind)! The words gave me an immediate kinship…
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June 25, 2021
“Love is what remains when everything else is gone.” – The Four Winds
In Kristin Hannah’s new book, The Four Winds, she writes about a horrific time in America’s history: the Great Depression and the drought-stricken Great Plains described as the Dust Bowl.Many…
May 21, 2021
“The beauty isn’t in the jewel itself, but in the way the light shines through it.” – This Tender Land
This sentence from This Tender Land immediately struck me as a great one, but I’ve struggled with writing about it for weeks. So, on a three-hour car trip with my…
February 24, 2021
“The bees in my chest stir.”
It is every writer's goal, I imagine, to bundle words together in an invitation for readers to think and feel. The bees in my chest stir. These six small words…
January 9, 2021