To all our Associates: Herewith, we list some commonly used polite phrases to assist our public relations, political consulting, healthcare and customer service associates. It's crucially important that you understand their precise import. They

1 I've witnessed with anxiety the outpouring of emotions surrounding the protests after George Floyd's death and the re-arousal of the Black Lives Matter movement. I confess I've found myself thinking, why can't you put all that anger aside, however

In some eras, lies of omission and commission are matters of career and even personal survival: the Spanish inquisition, communist and fascist totalitarianism, America's McCarthy era, today's Iran or Saudi Arabia. And now today's America, where fear

Note: I'm re-posting this April 13, 2017 essay after deleting several superfluous passages. I haven't updated it in any way, except for an endnote, so that the feeling of that time and the fear it implies for 2020 remain intact. To demonstrate

Thursday evening two weeks ago, I had an upsetting experience with my writers' group. No one said anything deliberately hurtful, and there was no horrible argument. The members are generous in spirit and with their constructive comments. Knowing I

Ever noticed how we can't complain without giving each other advice? "The way I'm eating in this pandemic, I'm going to turn into a beached whale." — Don't you exercise? — "Like I told you, I have a stationary bike." — Oh right, what you

Antonia, a warm, famously doe-eyed woman in her thirties, was one of three receptionists at my former law office. Their long desk was in an area accessible to members of the public, while the rest of us worked safely behind code-locked doors. We

On Easter Sunday, a neighbor sent me the following email: Just wanted to let you know that [my husband] came down with little sniffles yesterday. We thought it may be just allergies, but it didn’t go away after he took his allergy meds. He doesn’t

My intrepid friend, Neil, likes to read books about intrepid adventurers. Subscribers to this blog have met Neil (not his real name) before in my account of an awkward party. Late one Saturday afternoon last month, he headed to the pub to finish

In the depths of England's Great Plague of 1665-1666, the Derbyshire village of Eyam isolated itself in order not to spread the infection to other villages. Eyam (pronounced "Eem") is situated in the county of Derbyshire, a few miles south of

Wordgathering has published my story, "Accommodation," in its current issue. Here's the link: https://wordgathering.com/vol14/issue1/fiction/spratt/    

I have long wished the Confederate states had been allowed to secede. My reservation is that secession would have prolonged slavery. Although I have read arguments that even in an independent South, slavery couldn't have endured, the institution

To his surprise, my friend Neil was recently invited to a former neighbor's housewarming party at her new home. Neil's vision, never great, has deteriorated in recent years. He took a taxi there and was greeted at the door by the host, his former

I was honored this week when The New Yorker printed a version of a letter I submitted in response to an article discussing the enigmatic notion of equality. You can read the published version of my letter here. It's impossible for me to read that

I have just learned of a touching act of generosity by the headmaster of a school I attended long ago. For logistical reasons, and possibly also for cultural ones, it would be neither possible nor needed today. In July 1967, I completed my second

You lie, I lie, we all lie. Especially politicians, right? Is there anywhere a handhold of truth we can cling to? In Nana Krame Adjei-Brenyah's apocalyptic story, "The Era," included in Best American Short Stories 2019), truthtellers have taken

An awkward situation for all concerned is when a parent and young child encounter a blind person walking with a white cane. How many times have I, that person with the cane, heard the child say something like, "Mommy, what's that?" or "Daddy, why is

If I tell Tricia that blonde doesn't look good on her, she'll be annoyed. She'll think I'm harping on again about being old. Well, we're both getting old—are old. Why is it that helping friends always gets you into trouble? Not that Tricia's

1 Is it wrong to appreciate works created by artists who have done bad things? These days the quandary arises around #MeToo transgressions, but it has been around for as long as there has been art. The question comes to my mind in connection with a

I got pushback against my claim in last week's post that much of the nation hijacked the September 11 tragedy that befell Manhattan's Financial District. Superficially, the historical record supports the pushbacker view. Everyone around the country

A recent experience has caused me to consider yet again the difficulties inherent in writing about someone else, above all a friend. An essay I worked on for two weeks caused such distress to a good friend that I abandoned the project before

Think of a song, and chances are you’ll think of a moment or a someone. Think of another song, and you’ll probably think of another moment, another someone. A piece of music might pop up when you call to mind a parent, a child, a friend, a certain

This 75-page compilation brings together excerpts I previously posted individually from the childhood sections of my unpublished memoir, Spiral to Edinburgh. The first excerpt goes back to when I was five or six. The next series relates my boarding

Marshall McLuhan famously wrote, “The medium is the message.” My own experience suggests that theater can compete with the message. When a talking head appears on a political show on television, a viewer’s reaction might be less to the words they

I’ve been asked to comment on an influential foundation’s report advocating for greater participation by disabled people in movies and on television. In case my comments have broader interest, below is the slightly edited response I