Ten years ago this November, shortly before Thanksgiving, a girl I knew — a friend––took her life. She was 26. I was at Columbia when a mutual friend texted me with the news. …

It was a Superman lunchbox and the smell of my mother’s perfume when she left me on the steps of the tiny Kindergarten portable that fortified me on my first day of school. That was the beginning of it. Before first crushes, first cigarettes, first girlfriends, and first rum-and-cokes greedily…

The platitudes are everywhere. From the ready-for-a-fridge-magnet Hemingway quote about sitting down at a typewriter and bleeding to experts on LinkedIn talking about “content creators” and “engagement” the way Millennial YouTubers talk about video games and makeup tips, there’s no shortage of advice and encouragement for those stupid — or…

Every Christmas carries with it a Ghost of Christmas past. The holiday itself represents a break with the past — a new covenant — in the form of Christ as redeemer, Christ as savior, Christ as a living and suffering God-made-flesh. It’s the movement of the Old Testament YHWH from…

Years ago, I took a class in creative writing at a small community college in the Bay Area. It was a gut course: an easy A since grading was based entirely on participation; on whether or not you did the work. The assignments, if you can call them that, were…

She stands on her deck on a June night, staring out at the Hollywood Hills, freckled in orange stars expanding into galaxies in the flatlands. Her mascara is perfect, though her eyes are wet. …

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.” — Dostoyevsky I remember the scent of sweat on your neck and our lips sore with too much kissing and the way your mouth…

The dawn glowed orange on the creamy gray horizon as we finally shook free of the Icelandic night and started toward morning in Paris. I drank a beer and stretched out in my seat watching the starboard moon’s reflection on the wing. The beer was very cold and I justified…

I stumble onto the platform at the Barbès-Rochechouart Metro station, having missed my stop at Anvers and almost getting crushed in the slamming doors of the train. My feet are swollen and I can feel the blisters tear under the chafing of the new shoes I bought before leaving America…