Category: Blog

WHEN I WAS sixteen years old, I was eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant with a close friend when he asked a humorous but pointed question: “So what you’re choosing to do with your life is essentially this: You are going to move your arms back and forth repeatedly in…

My mom gave me plenty of great advice over the course of her lifetime. Don’t “should” on yourself.  (I should do this! I shouldn’t have done that.) Don’t date men you wouldn’t consider marrying.  It’s a waste of your time and theirs.

I’VE BEEN THINKING a lot about past friendships as I write this blog. My friendships I made in master ballet teacher’s Finis Jhung’s brilliant ballet classes at the Alvin Ailey Extension led me to reconsider my role as a friend.  Mr. Jhung’s classes led me to meditate on…

A FEW YEARS ago, (five, to be exact), I took a job as the executive director of the Feminist Press. Prior to that, I had written six books about feminism (for houses like FSG, Seal, and Akashic), dozens of features for magazines, made two activist documentaries, and was…

MEMORY DEVOURED THE SUMMER OF THE ONE-YEAR anniversary of Vinni’s disappearance. I thought about renting the house—the perfect punishment—in Spring Haven, but I knew that wasn’t the answer. John D’Orfini kept his eye on the calendar. In the weeks leading up to the first anniversary,…