Struggling through 'Madame Bovary'
Why do I adore the amazing lush, vivid prose of this book, yet I’m inching along, struggling every evening to make myself pick it up, and...
Poynter Q&A on Las Vegas & Columbine
The Poynter Institute is the leading journalistic think tank. After the Las Vegas shooting, a Poynter professor asked me to do an...
Diving into Jennifer Egan's: "Manhattan Beach"
Writing a bestseller doesn’t get you into clubs or fancy restaurants, but the one perk can be books. 😃👍🏾👍🏾
My favorite living author,
Lucia Berlin featured on NPR's Selected Shorts
Lucia is still my hero. Amazing writer, amazing friend. You can read about what I learned from her--about writing and about life--in my Vani
Itching to write? Here's THE guidebook
I just pulled out my version of Janet Burroway's, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. Decades into my career, eight years after...
Lolita! 3rd time's the charm
"I then had the fantastic pleasure of creeping through that pitch-dark tunnel, where I lingered a little to listen to the singing in my