Moll Flanders: whore to thief — During the first third of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, we are taken through Moll’s life from a destitute child borne by a woman at Newgate Prison to her insistence on becoming a whore instead of a maid. It makes sense to me: Moll would rather sleep with men she is…

If we wanna find a silver lining, it’s in compromise. — “Stop it!” My 9-year-old daughter brushed her long blonde hair out of her blue-grey eyes and pulled off her flip-flops to toss on the candy wrapper-littered backseat floorboard. “Stop what?!” I saw my 12-year-old son kick his sister’s ankle. He’d pulled his long curly brown hair back into a bun…

Or any time of year you feel like getting spooky — Sometime over the summer, I started hankering for cooler weather and spooky stories. It’s finally October. And it was under 60 degrees when I woke up. Finally. What’s the deal with The 13 Days of Halloween anyway, Aimée? It’s a riff on The 12 Days of Christmas. …

An exercise in delaying soon and trying to coax soon to come sooner — My head feels fuller than an overtopped baked potato, cheese ooey gooey-ing over the plate and onto your grandma’s stark white doilies. And it’s pretty much what’s been stopping me from writing or publishing new stuff lately. When the cork feels in danger of surprise popping I go into hermit…

When primary school sent me to interview a neighbor, I got to learn about the “olden” days — Just saying “hoecake” sounds derogatory, like I’m calling out my cake for hoing around, which I would never do. I thought my research would reveal a risque story of yesteryear. Nope. Even though they’re spelled differently, hoecake manages to have a sultry (?) slutty (?) sound to it. Moving on. The Interview

Channeling Huntress S Thompson — It can’t be too hard to write a 100 thing Listicle. <quicksand and quagmire envelop her> “Hey let me out!” “Don’t I get to bring books?” Books I’ve read recently: Would You Rather?; Born A Crime; Little Paris Bookshop; Quiet is in progress But not right now. Smoosh. Squish. Squoosh…

Pretending to know it all is an opportunity for the universe to remind us we don’t — To be a writer is to engage in a perpetual existential crisis. Who am I? Who was I yesterday and why? Who are you? Who are we? It’s easy to get stuck in the spinning tiltawhirl of my mind. Don’t write poetry. It doesn’t make money. Hardly anyone reads it…

A 1980s girl now grown turns into a swirl of vomit-angst-anger yet again the day Roe V. Wade is overturned, June 24, 2022 — It’s been a day. Another day in the United States. Another day in which I worry for the future of homo sapiens, specifically our children. Sure, there’ll be the forced slave race of unaborted children. The fear is in my cells. The fear is in my cells. I remember this…

Here’s the problem with guns — When I was a little kid in the Bible belt, I wanted to play with toy guns like all my other friends. My parents had a strict rule against any gunplay. After my parent’s divorce, one of my mom’s boyfriends managed to get me a plastic suction cup dart gun…

Pronoun envy and the struggle for gender equality in the English language — The way society utilizes its language can have a powerful effect on how people are treated within the culture. The genderization of language will become less acceptable in western culture, along with the removal of racist language. During an undergraduate college lecture, a white male student became very uncomfortable after…

Between capitalism and the patriarchy, I’m running on empty — Yesterday, after assessing my screamingly aching hip joints, I decided to take a midday bath. I was enjoying my Epsom salt soak, phone in hand — because I’m one of those people who takes the phone with me into the bath — when it began to ring. I ignored the…

Bingz Huang asks — This December, I’m running a little experiment. Each week, I’ll choose one question comment from an article of mine and turn the answer into a story. We’re kicking it off with Bingz’s question on my recent article Today I Tried Not to Cry Over Spilt Coffee When My Day Didn’t…

So many of us are so close to being in need of the basics — I lunged a third of my body over the side of the bed and grabbed my laptop. It was precariously placed on the floor, amongst haphazard piles of old college essays, decades-old short stories and poems, and other miscellanies I’ve been trying to sort through. This morning, I woke up…

On the continued legacy of Rachel Carson — Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring (1962), brought to the American public’s attention the hazards of pesticide use on the environment. By tackling a smaller part of a larger dilemma, Carson gained both negative and positive attention from scientists, politicians, industry, and the public. In Silent Spring, Carson displayed her…

How planning to fail may be your path to success — Do you have the chutzpah to follow your dreams? This 8-minute freewriting exercise is based on the premise that defensive pessimism can assist you in expediting your goals. Kelly Eden asked each of us in her and Ash Jurberg’s weekly writing group to consider one of two questions and then…

Simple ways to practice gratitude and let off steam — The hardest part about practicing gratitude is not finding things to be grateful for but remembering to make the time to honor that for which we are grateful. Much like you probably have, I have also heard over and over again that writing down what you are grateful for really…

A story held in a copper cauldron — She begins brewing her magic in a copper cauldron deep within her belly. She fills it with a warm yellow light. The light is comforting and gentle. She feels the light like a firefly slowly intensifying its glow and becoming more powerful. Into the cauldron she adds a deep layer…

Using gifted cash to invest in your personal growth intentionally — There are a few people left in my life who still ask me what I’d like for my birthday, the holidays, or Mother’s Day. I still have trouble telling the truth. I’m 42 years old—no spring chicken. What I’d like is money. In a past life, I would’ve used gifted…

Affordable inspiration at your fingertips — Several years ago I felt like I’d hit the jackpot when I found the website DailyOM.com. I swear I’m not hawking QVC-style inspirational website content. I’m not an affiliate. This is just an awesome website I want you to know about, too. I didn’t have a lot of money for…