January 5, 2015 “I write these words as a man with a Ph.D. in failure, and I commenced my subject’s study on the day I decided to become a writer, a life-changing choice I made in 1986, after taking a creative-writing class my sophomore year at Vassar College. How many times did I fail? Let me count the ways.” As the rest of the country makes resolutions for self-improvement, celebrated Nashville novelist Adam Ross considers the value of failure.

December 19, 2014 When I was a child, Christmas at Granny Browning’s house was about tradition, not pleasure. Christmas at home was an orgy of expensive presents and junk food. Both of them were wonderful and awful—and both were gifts to last a lifetime.

December 18, 2014 Six women gathered around and bravely shared their writing, some for the first time. Their enthusiasm and laughter were contagious, their easy camaraderie a stroke of luck. Workshops don’t always give rise to a circle of friends, but this one did. I could see that much. What I couldn’t see yet was how it was also working as the start of something else.

December 17, 2014 Mothers stopped peeling potatoes and scrubbing clothes to stand on bare porches and watch. We fell on the weeds in front of us and cupped our hands into imaginary telescopes and pressed them to our eyes to watch the kite as long as we could.

December 16, 2014 I’ve been asked more times than I can count why I marched with the NAACP. Friends wondered if I believe Michael Brown was really innocent. Marchers wondered why a white poet from Denver would make such a journey. There’s no simple answer to either question.

December 15, 2014 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman of a certain chest size will always be in a want of a well-fitting bra. This axiom is never truer than when said woman is a runner in need of a new sports bra.