In my posts to this website, as well as in my fiction, I’m conscious of writing from the point of view of an individual. The argument goes that when we depict personal experience, we speak for many others, even the whole of human experience. But do

For the past twenty-two months, my old office, the New York State Attorney General’s complaint mediation program, has been empty but for two people: a file clerk and a staff member who processes the day’s mail. COVID-19 is the explanation, of course.

I recently came across Jackie Trent’s obscure recording, “When Summertime is Over.” It took me back to an alienated time in my childhood. That summer of 1965 came after I’d forced the authorities and my parents to free me from boarding school,

The many-petaled spiral of the English garden rose sparks a spring day with red, yellow or orange. It is lovely and gracious, while its thorns bespeak personality and attitude: Be civil, young man, young lady. What could be more English? Yet,

Advocates for people with disabilities believe that central to the fight to end so-called ableism is the censorship of words that could cause offense and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. I’m already risking controversy with the phrase “people with

Who would I be if I forgot the best teacher I ever had for coaxing me to get over my math phobia, or the time my boss bailed me out and then reamed me out after I got a client into a disastrous investment, or the glowing loveliness of my wife Jane on