Enough cannot be written about desire. Desire will not let us hold or master it. Instead, we are both lucky and pained to dwell in its atmosphere, an atmosphere changing so quickly we would need an atomic clock to trace its movements. Anne Carson’s Eros…

The story goes like this: Back in the early fourteenth century, the Pope (which Pope? you ask? The interwebs are unclear. . . There’s a Boniface-Benedict disagreement out there. . .) needed a painter for an important project, so sent a courier to Florence,…

There isn’t much about parenting that I don’t know. Mothering, specifically. A caveat though: I mean, mothering with a good dose of privilege, including financial security. But within that fortunate realm, I have been at this mothering thing more than…

Hi All, When Gulf Coast Journal and I put together this plan, the idea was always for me to run some “vintage” posts. And today is my first. See you with new material again on Thursday! Robin In 1993, my first marriage failed – eight years and two children…

. . . is. . . The Success Gap. I have learned to avoid absolutes, so I won’t say that I don’t know a single writer who isn’t fully aware of who among their social circle has achieved more than they, but I will say, I have met precious few who don’t have…

Thirty-three years ago, I took a fiction writing workshop in college - Sarah Lawrence - with the extraordinary Allan Gurganus. Allan set us to writing a story a week for the full year, an experience for which I’ve been grateful ever since. We had different…

Last week I read an article about reality, a physics theory I cannot even pretend to understand.  The degree to which I don’t understand it is itself kind of enjoyable, an intellectual free fall without a net. Not that being baffled is a rare experience…

Dear All, It’s an enormous honor and joy to be the Guest Blogger here for February. I’ve known about this for a while. Not long enough to have done anything smart like stock-piling posts, but long enough to ponder what I think the point of having a single…

Our tendency to keep changing our minds was perhaps the most revealing aspect of Gauging the Grey Area—to keep our minds open and to continue the discussion amongst artists...

Italicized, in a font distinct from the rest of the cover text, “you are invited” had me thinking “garden party,” or actually, just “party.” Literal in my following of this theme, I found my afternoon session: “Party Out of Bounds”...