The Bookshelf

Right now, I want to talk about the things that have kept me going when it felt like the ground was slipping out from under my feet.

There has been a passage from a song in the musical Hamilton playing in my head today. In the eye of a hurricane There is quiet For just...

The Gunpowder Plot's legacy lies on one man and a mask, a hundred years later.

If you'd told me a year ago that I was going to be making the sharp, terrifying transition into becoming a full-time professional writer...

I’ve always been academically gifted. I was a straight-A student in a school where the lowest A-grade score was 94 out of 100. I held...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable...

My self-esteem reached its all-time low in middle school. I was a fat, tall, acne-prone girl with big, thick glasses and too-long hair,...

There have been protests in the streets across the country and in countries around the world for over a week, and I have been vocal on...

When I was a kid, I lived in the neighborhood behind our local hospital. It was a quiet neighborhood, and everyone kept extremely to...

Some years ago, I can't remember exactly when, my mom took me out shopping for my birthday. We went out for lunch, then went to my...

I have spent the majority of my quarantined experience holed up in my little rectangle of a bedroom, connecting to the world through my...

One of the most common conversations in my house starts with the click of an electric kettle, and the soft bubble of the water inside as...

Quarantine. Self-isolation. Shelter At Home. Social Distancing. These are not phrases that were part of the popular lexicon last month,...

Ages ago, when we were still discovering the art of record keeping and the building of societies, people looked up into the sky at night...

The airport in Denver, Colorado is bustling. Bright, clear signs with neon orange letters proclaim the destinations and times of...

(Spoiler warning for the 2014 stage production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame) Paris is on fire. Flames lick at the crowds that gather,...

Last August, having written, re-written, edited, re-edited, re-re-edited, and generally fretted over my first official manuscript, I was...

When I write, I feel the most at home writing descritions. I love dropping my audience headfirst into a scene, tumbling through...

Have some late-night inspiration a little earlier in the evening than usual: The universe is billions of years old. No matter how you...

There's a fairly new coffee shop that I've begun to frequent in my town. It's about a five minute drive from my house with no traffic, in...