Most history books focus on the ideas of great thinkers, the bravery of warriors, the charity of saints and the creativity of artists. They have much to tell about the weaving and unravelling of social structures, about the rise and fall of empires,

In 1974, I took a bus to Montreal from a distant part of New England. At the time, I was a British citizen with alien status in the United States. In this excerpt from my unpublished memoir, Spiral to Edinburgh, I describe my encounter with Quebecois

Just as we choose our friends but not our family members, as children we don’t choose where we live. Only as adults can we make that decision, even if our options are limited. And just as we might love family members we don’t much like, along with

The man had been so incredibly rude. Bob didn’t realize how annoyed he still was until, arriving home, he slammed the keys on the small table by the front door. He heard the metal exclamation as if with Jenna’s ears. Emerging from the kitchen,

That Friday afternoon last month, a Green-Wood Cemetery employee named Katie escorted Laura and me as we toured options for our future remains. We walked from buildings to open areas with ponds and vistas, on to another building, and then to yet

I’ve had this website for nearly a year, and I’ve been posting on my blog since July. As I assess my hopes for this project, I have reconsidered the text on my homepage, and specifically the discussion of the role of blindness in my work. On the one