Linda Gray Sexton
Today, a Carly Simon lyric is running through my head non-stop: “Anticipation is makin’ me late, is keepin’ me waitin’.” I am trying to be patient, but suppressing excitement about my trip to New York just makes time drag more: November 17th is only two days away, but I feel like a little girl holding…
Read More
For the first time in a long time, children dressed in costumes and shrieking “Trick or Treat” will clamor at the stoop of my house on October 31st. In California, we lived at the end of a long and dark street where no child ever ventured; over the course of the past sixteen years, I…
Read More
Here in Maryland, in the backyard of my new home, the leaves are just beginning to fire up with color. Back in California, in the yard of the home I’ve left behind and haven’t sold yet, a thick layer of smoke obscures the view of the mountains from my living room windows. In the mornings,…
Read More
Last week, I received many responses to my last newsletter essay, the one about losing the ones we love. Many people agreed that we all need to pay more attention to the way we try and help those we care about as they grieve. This week, I find myself dealing with a strong sort of…
Read More
Grief: the most overpowering emotion of them all. How devastating it is to lose a husband or wife, a parent or friend, or, worst of all, a child. Books are written on how to handle the process of letting go and healing, yet we rarely do we discuss death amongst ourselves, despite the frequency with…
Read More
I am standing at my kitchen counter, filling Cody’s daily medication boxes. As I do it, I hold my breath. Despite my knowledge of common sense, I cannot deny the irrational belief that if I pour the exact number of pills out into my palm on the first pass, he will have a seizure-free week.…
Read More
When I was a child, my parents held out to me the example of an excellent and dedicated writer, my great-grandfather, Arthur Gray Staples. My mother, a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet herself, told me many stories of his life in Maine, in the early 1900’s, as the editor-in-chief of the Lewiston Evening Journal, which was considered…
Read More
I am a bit of a compulsive reader. It’s like a hobby, in a way. I’m passionate about it, have fun with it when I am not working, and take joy in all it brings me. I have a suggestion for three books you might sample over the coming summer months. Everyone has time to…
Read More
If, as I said in my last newsletter, writers’ lives are ruled by solitude and self-discipline, how then do we go about bringing light into the rooms of the mind where creativity comes to life? After all, we follow our calling for some reason. What compels us to face down our computers every day, and…
Read More
The life of a writer can be lonely and frustrating. If you are not extremely successful, you generally can’t pay your bills without someone else supporting you; and it can be difficult to get published from book to book, even if you are fairly well-known and loved by a devoted cadre of readers. Potential editors…
Read More