Trying to figure out which Anne it was…Dillard, Lamott, Patchett, Frank? There are a lot of literary Annes. It was Dillard:

One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later […]

Sometimes I wad up paper and throw it at my students. Let me explain.

When I was a high school student, we did something called WAD words. Word-A–Day. And that was something. I remember trying to be clever and incorporating them into a speech at graduation. Some of them I internalized. I think we had a […]

I bet you have a story about helium balloons. There was a party, a birth, a funeral, or someone was sucking in the gas and making a funny voice.

Here are two of my favorite:

1. My son was 2 or 3 or almost 4. Somebody gave him a helium balloon at Burgerville. He had seen […]

I wrote a small book a few years ago: The Little Goldenrod Book of Limericks. And every few years we play around with limericks in class. I try to use them to teach other things, and show quickly and easily how you can edit and play around with words. The form gets stuck in my head. […]

I’ve been making the case for learning new words at school. You know, being an English teacher and all. Sometimes it feels like the students are geese that I am going to use for foie gras someday. Gotta fatten up those livers! Foie gras is a popular dish in Hungary… they force feed the geese…

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Let’s call this a cabinet of curiosities. A place to store a narwhal tusk because you don’t want a museum to have it. But that’s not why you need the cabinet. Museums rarely come knocking, but that shouldn’t stop you from collecting.

A lot of it, A LOT OF IT, comes from reading. You try […]

The episode “20 Acts in 60 Minutes” includes 20 short stories instead of the customary 3. I actually think of Act 14 a lot. The segment is called: “Call in Colonel Mustard for Questioning”

The story is about an updated hot dog factory. They realize that the product is different. They can’t figure out why. […]