“You know, mom, you can’t be a writer and have a good garden. You have to make a choice,” my eleven-year-old son said. At the time, we were walking together through Hidcote Garden, a magnificent Arts and Crafts garden in …
Little does she know that when she goes out, I use her bathroom. Out of sensitivity for her squeamishness, I always wipe the toilet seat with Lysol after I’ve finished. She is totally unaware that I have almost used up …
Midmorning on a summer Sunday in 1987. The smell of mown grass and auto exhaust, the asphalt soft underfoot, warmed by the sun. Signifiers of home for me.
Woodward Avenue, an eight-lane racetrack connecting downtown Detroit to its northern suburbs, …
He loved words. A writer. Words weren’t just his stock and trade, they were his very reason for living. Like the jeweler with his gems, painter with his colors, junkie with his pills, so was he with words. Or take …
“I can still see your face, Mom” are words to you from my daily morning work-day prayers. They are sort of a chant, sung in an almost-whisper inside my head. (On those mornings when my husband has left for work …
There was once a very poor, very plain looking, simple minded young woman who lived with her three small children in a hovel high on a cliff overlooking a swirling river below. Because she was very plain looking, and knew …
“I’m ready for the zoo, Grandma!” Matt’s 4-year old face flushed with excitement. “Can we ask Mr. Leo to come with us?”
Rose looked out the window and saw Leo, her neighbor, weeding his garden. She sighed. He’d see them …
I’d been so long without, that the mannequins in the dress shop window were starting to look good. If things got much worse I’d end up giving them names. I’d gotten tired of working alone in my home office, so …
Freeing herself caused breakage. And healing. Stronger now, she soars.
Sue Quinn works for an international nonprofit and has been writing on and off for years. Her two daughters have both left the nest and North Dakota, where she has …
It didn’t matter that he was my father. I didn’t like him much.
My father, his parents, and all his siblings were born in England. None of them had a sense of humor. It might have helped.
Dad was the …