My son, Sol, taught himself to read playing video games. People don't believe it when I say that. They smile and nod, but the skepticism in their eyes gives them away. I get it. It sounds like the kind of...
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When I think of my childhood in Ukraine, I remember lots of trees -- thick old oaks, shy birches, chestnuts with peeling skin. I remember skipping steps on my way to my apartment inside the gray Khrushchev-style, five-story building. I...
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I am trying to write a memoir about my relationship with my father and I keep writing variations of the phrase, "My father died almost eighteen years ago." Why do I prefer this phrasing to "My father has been dead...
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After my mother died, I noticed a repetitive pattern in my writing. My mother had secretly slipped into my pages of prose, and no matter what I was writing, no matter how much I gently and respectfully tried to nudge...
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I'd like to say that my first thought, when the doctor held my son up for me to see, was that he was adorable. But that's the fiction writer in me kicking in, urging me to revise. "Adorable" wasn't what...
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I am downstairs, late at night, working on my computer. Suddenly there is a beep on my screen: an instant message coming in. "You up?" It's my sixteen-year-old daughter, Katie, writing from her cozy nook of a room one flight...
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