nonfiction

The ceilings in the studios had to have been 20 feet high. I loved the corner where I painted, lit by a tall, old window that was stuck closed with time...

Loving the campers was the given. We were in sync. I wasn’t, after all, that much older than they were. I could have passed for one of them, had I worn a camp uniform...

Writing about Percy is like trying to write about magic, or grace, or river waters flowing through my fingers.

The tops of the chocolate pudding have developed a rubbery layer, as they will, when they cool. That rubbery layer is my favorite part...

When I write in my journal, every morning, with coffee, sometimes the writing heats up, feels like it’s about to deliver something...

It lives inside me, no one but myself to corroborate what I saw. Until now, when at last I have committed that moment to the page...

Where I go on the web to read nonfiction that expands my understanding of what essays are and what they can do.

...the progression of Lillian’s dementia is there, just outside, and I have to encounter this slow, arduous and mysterious passage. Lillian was a painter, as I am.

In her 58th post, Helena marvels at her late summer garden and shares some of her students' publications.

In her 57th post, Helena grapples first with this column’s deadline, then with a transformative experience of both grief and love.