The Me My Child Mustn’t Know
On a recent weekend morning, I set out with my son to do errands. As we drove from the post office to the health food store, he began fiddling around with the radio, looking for NPR. I reached over and turned it off. He turned it back on. I turned it off again. He shot [...]
#amwriting
I’m writing this on a laptop using a software program called Freedom. Freedom’s sole function—its raison d’ê tre—is that it disables the internet. How many minutes of freedom would you like? The question popped up in a little window in the middle of my screen.
Ellen Miller’s “Like Being Killed”
I remember her hands: fingers red, raw, bleeding through layers of skin, all the way from her nails to below her knuckles. A curtain of black hair covered most of her face as she tilted her head forward and lifted her fingers to her mouth. Chewing, biting, quietly gnawing. This was something far beyond a [...]
A Writing Career Becomes Harder To Scale
Authors used to expect to struggle as they gained experience. But now it is sell — or else.
Frame by Frame
Growing up, Dani Shapiro always felt caught in her mother’s viewfinder-until she found the strength to break free.
There is No Me Without You
Dani Shapiro spared no effort or expense in her quest to find the perfect egg donor-one with her intellect, her looks, even her feelings. But then they met, and she realized that even the finest reproductions still aren’t the real thing




