Book of Mercy was a finalist in the 22nd Annual Midwest Book Awards, which were announced on May 9 in Bloomington, MN. Is this a big deal? I interviewed Antigone Brown, the main character in Book of Mercy, about her view of this momentous event. She is a mother-to-be who stands up to the book banners in [...]
Art is never supposed to be cute. If you called the Mona Lisa cute, I bet she’d slap that grin right off your face. Art should fill you with serenity or rage, with beauty or horror. But never the warm, cuddly cuteness of babies and kittens. Cuteness in art is the kiss of death. Every year I [...]
The goal is to build more libraries than Andrew Carnegie. That’s 2,510. They don’t have to be big or built of marble or be guarded by massive stone lions. They just have to have books and people who want to read them. The Little Free Library movement started in 2010 in Hudson, Wisconsin, with a tiny [...]
I used to hate taxes. It’s true. Every year around tax time, I would search the real estate ads in The New York Times for a small, used island: “Fixer upper. All you need is a well, a small power plant, a road grader, and a garbage collection truck, and you’ve got paradise. Excellent for [...]
A little penguin named Tango and a banned book have created an uproar in Rochester, MN. Rochester is the home of the Mayo Clinic, the facility patients come to from all over the world to get answers to tough medical questions. Here is where you hope someone will bring information into the light, not hide it. [...]
I fantasize about cooking like the Jetsons do: with the press of a button. I love to eat but hate to cook, which is a sad situation to be in three times a day. Nothing about the kitchen calls to me—except for occasional baking binges involving cookie cutters and multicolored frosting. In fact, I once remodeled [...]
When my mother died unexpectedly of cancer, she left five lost daughters, a husband who wrapped his mind around death by watching screaming news analysts on MSNBC, and a lifetime of paper. My mother made multiple copies of everything, from tax returns to brochures about preventing identity theft. Looking for insurance policies and wills, my [...]
This post was crafted by a human being while eating chocolate chips straight from the bag and watching the snow fall. Not all stories have the luxury to be created in such a ridiculously unscientific manner. Forbes is now using computer-generated stories created by Narrative Science software. Writers apparently are no longer needed for a long list [...]
I despise holidays based on either extortion or expectations of the heart. Everyone knows my feelings about Halloween. (See “Why I Spend Halloween in the Basement.”) Valentine’s Day ranks right up there with it; I was tempted to name this post “Why I Spend Valentine’s Day Under the Bed.” I didn’t always think Valentine’s was a [...]
This is a story of a woman who drew on the walls and the stove and the breadbox. Her name was Maud. And I fell in love with her spirit. Folk artist Maud Lewis of Nova Scotia was a wee woman with such a great artistic spirit that her entire house has been preserved in the Art [...]
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