There was no sane reason for me to run for Congress, but 1970 was an insane year — and when one is young, all things seem possible.
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Barbecuing the Hog
A political rookie hits the campaign trail
Essays
Three-Day Business Trip
Third-prize winner in the Tennessee True Stories Essay Contest
I arrived in Zagreb in the evening of Thursday, April 15, 1993 — the first step of a planned three-day business trip. I expected to return home to Bosnia as soon as it was done.
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Close Call
Second-prize winner in the Tennessee True Stories Essay Contest
Metal buckets evoke a feeling in me that’s hard to shake. Whenever I see one, a memory comes rushing back.
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Grasshopper
First-prize winner in the Tennessee True Stories Essay Contest
James was the only person I’d talked to in the first week of moving to Nashville, outside of my husband and the local coffee shop guy. We would be spending many hours together, just the two of us in this little car. I wanted him to like me.
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Some Words to the Close and Holy Darkness
A writer explores her enduring ties to a seasonal classic by Dylan Thomas
Every year, when the stresses of the holiday season begin whipping up into frenzy, I weather them by imagining that I’m roaming around the world described in the Dylan Thomas story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”: the magic of winter, the mysteries surrounding older family members, and the odd flexes of time when normal schedules are suspended.
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Piano Lessons
When is a piano not a piano?
For years, I imagined how much fuller my life would be if I could strike up a tune at a party, if I had the secret knowledge of music that every one of my friends seemed to have acquired. I felt that something was missing, something that made me a bit inferior to everyone I knew.
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