Balancing needs, time, love, and money My luggage was a brown paper bag and it held only one item, my nightie — all I needed for my weekend with my grandparents. Their home in Dayton was an I-house, so-named because many of the original builders were from Indiana, Illinois, and…

The precious gems of the button world Rooting through the sewing paraphernalia my aunt Dorothy left me when she died, I found eleven buttons clustered on a turquoise thread. Like other things in life, at first, I underestimated them. Eleven black plastic buttons. Then I looked closer. No, they were…

Is it as bad as they say? My aunt, at ninety-one, broached the subject of my great-grandmother Rosalie’s sewing cabinet more than once. She wanted me to have it when she passed away. I did. My cousin Dennis pulled it out of the estate sale. He said, “I don’t know…

A short story of adventure in a small town “What’re we gonna do, Niko?” Nine-year-old Chris glanced down at his brother as the two trudged home from the school bus stop. Eight-year-old Niko’s hazel eyes met Chris’s brown ones. The boys looked like two cookies from the same cutter but…

A short story of family, yearnings, and fate Fresh air, cool for the Attic peninsula, wafted in from the window. A perfect day, even though it was Monday. The morning sun set the dish of strawberries aglow. The scent of brandy tickled Tassos’s nose. He felt his mother’s hand on…

Eleven books to gift and to read this year Iceland, a country of volcanoes and hot springs, short ponies, and wooly horned sheep, is also a land with a super-long and cold Christmas Eve. Sure, the dark skies often host theatrical colored light displays of aurora borealis, but still…by mid-December…

Beth Smith shows us how childhood knitting opened the door to fiber art For decades I’ve watched my friend Beth Smith’s nimble fingers pick up a board game piece, move it, and ruin my day. …

Collaboration is the secret sauce to a happy writing life Planning my business trip to Manhattan back in the 1980s, I decided I’d stay at the Algonquin Hotel. I’d heard of the Algonquin Round Table, the group of wits, writers, actors, and critics who lunched together daily for the decade…

Tales from (mostly) tiny towns in (mostly) the Midwest I don’t remember why my husband and I had stopped forty miles north of Interstate 70, our usual route across Ohio. Maybe we were heading home from a B&B in that northeastern corner of the state. Or maybe we were bored…