I like to write.
Nafari The B Section: The creators of “The Office” announced plans for a reboot, and instead of a paper company, it will be a newspaper. A struggling one, and the editor will be trying to keep it alive with volunteer reporters. Honestly, my first thought was, “Yeah, that is basically what is happening now.” Not for … Read more
A longtime editor for NPR recently published an essay about his assertion that NPR had gone astray. If you’re someone who thinks as obsessively about good journalism as I do, you should read it. Unfortunately, it did require me to visit the Free Press website for the first time, led by Bari Weiss, and I … Read more
Right around this time in 2022, I was wandering around the University of North Carolina campus finally putting two and two together. I’d been invited to participate in a roundtable about journalism and noticed that the ride from the airport to the university was congested. The Lyft driver said something people being there for the … Read more
Look, I didn’t care about Kate Middleton at all until the Associated Press killed that photo. Now, she has had to go public to acknowledge a cancer diagnosis and about five minutes after she released her long-awaited public statement, people were shaming the media – and themselves – for forcing the issue with her. And … Read more
Hi! I’m starting a newsletter! I have been thinking about doing this for more than a year. But when your perfectionism is crippling – as mine can be – you convince yourself that you have to do so much work to get it out there. Which service? Who should I send it to? What will … Read more
The early part of Sept. 11, in my memory, is like in the movies when memories move around the screen with streaks. It’s me, stirring from a sleep, straining to listen to a voicemail being downstairs in my townhouse left by the man who will be my boyfriend, my husband, my ex-husband as he vocally … Read more
What I’m Working On For years, I’ve been compiling information about a housing development in Polk County called Indian Lake Estates. When we first moved here, we looked at a house there, which was almost perfect. Ultimately, we didn’t get it, but this development was started in the 1960s and is still somehow incomplete. Once … Read more
Have I mentioned here before how antsy I get when I run low on books? When I say “low on books,” it doesn’t mean I’m out of books I haven’t read, because that hasn’t happened since I was in grade school. No, we’re talking mostly about library books. Or new books. Anyway, when this happens, … Read more
Apparently, it’s March. I feel like we just started this year. And yet it feels like it’s been going on forever. It’s wild. Part of it, I know, is that my life has been like a load of clothes in a dryer: just everything tossed about under intense heat. The good news is that the … Read more
I refuse to watch “The Handmaid’s Tale” until a certain administration is out of the White House, because from what I hear, it’s tracking a little too close to reality and I can’t yet. But I looked for other Margaret Atwood books to read, and sure enough, I found “Alias Grace.” This book is about … Read more