what color is your paragraph?

Quick - what's your favorite color? Blue. No--yellow. No--red. Close your eyes and picture the right shade. If you had to describe that color to someone else, you'd need a little help from everyone's favorite sidekicks, the adjectives. These guys form an entourage around a word and, before you know it, boring old blue becomes Carolina blue, Icee® blue, deep-end-of-the-pool blue. Red becomes bloodshot, ember or ruby slipper. You get the picture. Words matter and, when artfully combined, they have the power to engage your senses, summon emotions and paint a picture faster than Bob Ross on a PBS rerun.

portrait of the writer as a preschooler

When I was four, I dipped my finger into my grape juice and wrote my name on our new sofa. In fifth grade, I started a writing club, where the monthly dues were a short story and a Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker® to trade. In college, I'd haul my electric typewriter and those chalky little correction strips into the hall and write stories that I was sure The New Yorker was dying to publish. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to write. 

"Table for Three"

A piece published a while back in moonShine review, wherein my soon-to-be teenaged daughter and I sit down with my teenaged self to talk life, love and--of course--tube tops.