A Far-Flung Life

I chose M. L. Stedman’s newest novel, A Far-Flung Life, based on the cover and the title. Something about the isolation of that windmill, silhouetted against the stars drew me in, as did the term “far-flung.” What kind of life could be described like that, I wondered. I knew nothing…

The Correspondent

Now and then I will read a book that pulls me into its world so deeply that I am there, and the characters are no longer fictional, but are people that I know. Such a novel is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. As a writer myself, I have a pretty…

The Present Moment

First published through my Water's Edge Press newsletter When I first read Tolstoy’s great fable, The Emperor’s Three Questions, I knew I would use it as the first work we read in AP English Literature and Composition each year. My premise was that AP English was hard work, so our…