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  • Year of the Returning Cicada

    Year of the Returning Cicada

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/03/09/cicadas-broodx-environment/ Names Brood X, the last time they appeared in hordes was in 2004. In a few months these monstrous looking bugs will burrow out of their 17-year hiatus and attach themselves to Everything. They will be everywhere, leaving exoskeletons and nesting in trees. If you miss seeing them—don’t worry—you will hear them as the… Read more

  • The “Foreignness” of Cloud of Witnesses

    The “Foreignness” of Cloud of Witnesses

    (Adapted from a talk I gave at the 2019 Illinois Reading Council Conference for teachers and librarians.) After writing and publishing my middle-grade novel, Cloud of Witnesses (Golden Alley Press), I discovered that it is but one of a handful of books currently being published that represents rural life. Most books coming out today for youth is… Read more

  • Hillbilly Elegy

    Hillbilly Elegy

    a review I sort of hate it when movies, books, media reduce complex issues down into easily digested bites. That’s the trouble with Hillbilly Elegy, the movie now playing on Netflix: distilled into the Hatfield and McCoys. In fact that piece of mountain myth is referenced in the first 15 minutes of the film. My… Read more

  • Back filling the data: Athens, Ohio during Covid-19

    Back filling the data: Athens, Ohio during Covid-19

    Frontline podcast https://tinyurl.com/vucolbt a journalist goes to the rural area of Athens, County where my story Cloud of Witnesses takes place–to discover that when the schools shut down in southeast Ohio because of the coronavirus it left children at risk of going hungry. The population was always at risk of poor health outcomes and at… Read more

  • Happy New Year, Nowruz

    Happy New Year, Nowruz

    This past weekend was Nowruz, the New Year according to the lunar calendar that Iran follows. In my book, Cloud of Witnesses, Hassan explains the idea of Nowruz to Roland who likens it to spring cleaning, a time to clear away the old and prepare for the new. “According to the Muslim calendar this is… Read more

  • Record Everything

    Record Everything

    So here I am for twenty minutes—the amount of time I can concentrate these days. I spend most of my time being distracted, touching my face, trying not to touch my face, or else washing my hands. A lot of time is wasted on mortality. Mine and the people I love. Charting the course of… Read more

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