I am writing an essay using an online app, and I am being constantly interrupted by popups telling me that I can sell what I'm writing for cash. Students will pay big bucks to cheat rather than to write themselves. It doesn't matter how … Read more

She was standing on the corner on a chilly February 14th, looking undecided as I came down the hill. "I'm gonna do it!" she declared as I approached. Yes, people talk to me on the street. When they need to talk to someone, I look … Read more

I live half a block from a funeral home. Hearses come by all the time, familiar drivers waving happily at me from the front seats, just doing their everyday assignments. It isn't their mother being buried today. I always wave back, … Read more

A slightly built woman in her late twenties lay curled in a fetal position on a patch of grass between the sidewalk and a parking lot, just a few doors down from where I live. "Could you call 911 for help?" I asked someone going by with a … Read more

In Alaska, my father and my grandfather were prospectors, an occupation that required a lot of shoveling. I grew up accustomed to all the attitudes and language that go with this frustrating, hole-digging, way of life, especially when … Read more

It was a few days before Christmas. I was running my little out-of-print book business when a young rocker whose band was usually on tour came in. He'd come home to see his folks. "Have you got a copy of Robert Heinlein's 'Time enough for … Read more

I didn't go home the Christmas when I was 19, living in a Bible school dormitory in Portland, Oregon, USA. I had a job, and I needed the money. My employer was an elderly woman in an architecturally significant mansion stuffed with … Read more

One Christmas, my 16-year-old sister got pregnant by her boyfriend. I was a year younger, and neither of us had the slightest idea how such a thing could happen. No one had ever told us anything, and we had no friends who might share … Read more

Yesterday, I was sitting on my walker in front of a store before heading back home. A skinny, disheveled man was there before me, pacing. "Why aren't they open yet?" he fumed. Ah! So, this was why God had nudged me to wait. I smiled at … Read more

I was hired on a short-term contract to catalog a prison library in a federal penitentiary with an inmate crew to help me. The men lived in the cell block that my husband guarded. "Anything that you tell me will go straight to him," I … Read more