When I was 15, I had a great summer job as a mother’s helper (similar to what the French call an au pair, or basically a glorified babysitter-cum-housekeeper). It was in a suburb of Boston with two well-behaved kids that I knew well. I also got to spend time with a group of kids I […]
writing process
No Noise
I checked my phone for the third time. No new emails. No texts. Not even any new posts on Instagram? That’s when I knew something was seriously wrong. Turns out, our internet provider (one of the biggest in Canada) was completely down—in fact, down all over the country. At first, it didn’t seem all that […]
When You “Don’t Know What to Write.”
One of the best holidays I ever had was a side trip to Washington, DC, in my early 30s, while doing research for my PhD. I spent my days at the University of Maryland in College Park, less than an hour from Washington. After hunkering down for eight hours a day in the bowels of […]