Category Archives: Uncategorized

The ancestors have charged you, dream traveler, to journey again along the flowing river into the ancient forest, to walk the stone circle of life curving toward the center where you must stand tall and be opened, where you must … Continue reading →

Christmas on the same day as Hanukkah is as challenging for my friend the Jewish poet as it is for me. How, she asks, does one freshly tell the ancient story of lamps lit for eight days with one day’s … Continue reading →

Though I am also an English professor, I spend much of my time at Sacramento City College teaching journalism and advising journalism students on campus publications. I helped create the college’s literary journal, Susurrus, in the early ’90s and spent 17 years … Continue reading →

What I want for Christmas: (Check all boxes that apply, even if you’re Jewish, or you stopped believing years ago; use exclamation points for things that warrant them) √ Happiness                √ Hired help   … Continue reading →

I’ve been teaching writing to college students for three decades now, and I well know how the ends of semesters go: lots of last-minute assignments and make-up tests, students coming to my office with pleas for leniency or concerns about … Continue reading →

I am living at the edge of a new leaf. —Arthur Sze, “The Shape of Leaves” The day after Thanksgiving I grabbed a plastic Target bag, its red chevrons dancing as I walked down my street to the best tree on … Continue reading →

Whaaa? you say? C’mon, you’re an English teacher, for heaven’s sake, Jan. You can’t just make up words like that. And I would tell you this: Sure, you can. That’s the fun of playing with words. Writers do it all … Continue reading →

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. —Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Searching for the light switch, fumbling in the dark, thinking, not again, the dark, … Continue reading →

comes in a bright yellow tin box left behind by a Japanese woman who lived in America for half a century, a naturalized citizen who remained stubbornly Japanese all her 86 years, who allowed her body, near the end, to … Continue reading →

We all want to share our birthdays with inspiring people, those we look up to, admire for their talents or brilliance. This is why I have have never been eager to admit that my birthday falls on the same day … Continue reading →