Author

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”

Why is it so great? When I was looking for a One Great Sentence dealing with immigration, I was struck by the differences between America’s two presidents named Roosevelt. In…
April 4, 2018
Newest Americans: stories of immigrants who help make the country great

Newest Americans: stories of immigrants who help make the country great

When Mexican director Guillermo del Toro won his best directing Oscar recently for “Shape of Water,” he said: “I am an immigrant. The greatest thing our art does is to…
April 3, 2018
Ida B. Wells and Roxane Gay -- fierce women of color born a century apart, writing of difficult truths

Ida B. Wells and Roxane Gay — fierce women of color born a century apart, writing of difficult truths

Looking back at this week’s posts, I was struck by the similarities between two of the writers we spotlighted. Ida B. Wells was a brave, pioneering investigative journalist who fought…
March 30, 2018
The Power of Narrative conference captures the #MeToo zeitgeist

The Power of Narrative conference captures the #MeToo zeitgeist

This year’s Power of Narrative conference seemed to capture the #MeToo zeitgeist, with speakers like author Roxane Gay and the Boston Globe’s Sacha Pfeiffer talking about the uncomfortable truths of…
March 29, 2018

“I’d rather go down in history as one lone Negro who dared to tell the government that it had done a dastardly thing than to save my skin by taking back what I said.”

Why is it so great? I found this quote from the absolutely amazing Ida B. Wells after The New York Times righted an old wrong by publishing her obit —…
March 28, 2018
Amy Padnani on The New York Times' “Overlooked” obituary series

Amy Padnani on The New York Times’ “Overlooked” obituary series

When Amy Padnani moved from The New York Times’ news desk to its obits department last year, she was charged with the task of “exploring different ways of storytelling with…
March 27, 2018
As spring begins, a last look at winter and its juxtaposition of beauty and hardship

As spring begins, a last look at winter and its juxtaposition of beauty and hardship

This week we celebrated the vernal equinox, this moment of rebirth and hope as we ease out of winter. (Of course, New England got hit with another snowstorm, as if…
March 23, 2018
In Sicily, an old oral storytelling tradition tries to renew itself in the 21st century

In Sicily, an old oral storytelling tradition tries to renew itself in the 21st century

The third-grade students in Misterbianco, a small town at the foot of Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, watched, rapt, as the heavy puppets moved on a school auditorium stage. The…
March 22, 2018

“The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy.”

This 1961 book has haunted me since I first read it about 15 years ago. Written at the birth of suburbia, and the accompanying conformity of such neighborhoods, it tells…
March 21, 2018
Katharine Seelye and "Life on an Island: Silence, Beauty and a Long Wait for the Ferry"

Katharine Seelye and “Life on an Island: Silence, Beauty and a Long Wait for the Ferry”

“Have you ever heard the absolute silence?”So asks a young lobsterman on Maine’s Matinicus Island, one of the handful of people who live year-round on the island, 22 miles out…
March 20, 2018