Author Archives: janishaag

Maybe you have to be an English literature geek. It probably also helps if you’re female, and you fell in love with Jane Austen at a tender age.  I hate to say this (as both the English lit geek and … Continue reading →

I have the great good fortune to be the proud aunt to the most amazing niece and nephew. And I’m not at all biased. I would’ve loved them had they chosen to pursue careers in, say, architecture or business, but … Continue reading →

We’re all looking for good news stories these days, the kind with happy endings. As a journalism teacher and former journalist, I love these stories that show the kindness of strangers, often in our own neighborhoods, but we don’t always … Continue reading →

For Alma, who escaped the Camp Fire with her life but not her home Porches, steps and all, except some concrete ones left blackened, broken off like old teeth, not to mention flower pots and the last gasp of roses … Continue reading →

Now and again this old print journalist steps into radioland and puts her voice out on the airwaves. I did that very thing this morning when the smoke from a still-uncontrolled fire that has taken most of the town of … Continue reading →

What the dead don’t know piles up like crusty sycamore leaves falling from the enormous tree in the backyard, nearly a century old now, just a sapling when Aunt Estelle told the men from the city to plant the youngster in … Continue reading →

So after I posted a new poem today, I got this from my ace supporter/partner/arbiter of taste: I did a little quick online research, and apparently WordPress has attached ads to some website/blog posts since 2006. But Dick (aka, arbiter … Continue reading →

  Kintsugi: “to join with gold,” the Japanese practice in which broken or damaged pottery is reassembled and glued back together with gold-powdered lacquer When they opened your chest, when a masked surgeon held your stilled heart, as the team … Continue reading →

There has been so much difficulty in the greater world this past week, not to mention what’s happening to our own little boats bobbing around on turbulent seas. So many of us have had a tough time between fresh losses … Continue reading →

I have now lived six decades on this planet, through the tail end of the years when the evil weed was illegal and being so freaked out by the notion of smoking anything that I went the other direction if … Continue reading →