The covidtide winter was already hard, and then schools started doing away with snow days in favor of digital school. I'm at Breaking Ground defending the snow day and its …
The Case for Unconditional Child Allowance
I defend the Romney child allowance plan against criticism from Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee in The New York Times. The senators called the Romney proposal “welfare assistance” and added: “An essential part of being pro-family is being pro-work. Congress should expand the Child Tax Credit without undercutting the responsibility of parents to work… Read More
Snow Days and Slack
The covidtide winter was already hard, and then schools started doing away with snow days in favor of digital school. I'm at Breaking Ground defending the snow day and its power to interrupt our overscheduled, strained routines. Slack is a necessary part of life, both for the individual and for the community. In Prayer as a… Read More
Writing Back Again from the Broken Land
My husband Alexi and I have written our first game together! Back Again from the Broken Land is a Tolkien-inspired role-playing game about small adventures walking home from a big war. We launched the game on Kickstarter as part of ZineQuest. In the game, you and the other members of your fellowship are making your… Read More
In Defense of Boring Time with Friends
I was honored to be a guest writing for Gracy Olmstead's Granola newsletter, and I wrote a defense of storge—the love marked by affection and fondness. Inviting people into the quotidian parts of your day isn’t just, as I used to think of it, a way of staving off boredom or loneliness. It’s a pledge… Read More
The Wasted Potential of Wonder Woman 1984
I was a fan of most of the first Wonder Woman film, but sadly disappointed by Wonder Woman 1984. At First Things, I wrote a little on how the film failed to live up to its promise. In her second film, the recent Wonder Woman 1984, Diana isn’t facing down an enemy power, but a distinctly… Read More
Books I Plan to Read in 2021
Last year, I had a baby... and finished all the books on my 2020 list! (With the caveat that my husband and I took up Cardinal Sarah's The Day is Now Far Spent as our shared Sunday readaloud book, so I get a pass since we're reading it slowly together). All in all, I read… Read More
My Favorite Books of 2020
These are my favorite books I read in 2020, listed in roughly chronological order. Nearly all of them were read as ebooks, many as library books, as I (initially) read with a sleeping newborn on my lap and (later) read standing up, ready to run to pluck our adventurous baby off the stairs. I rely… Read More
All Aboard the Generation Ship!
Nearly a year into the pandemic, I wrote an essay for Breaking Ground on how we can persist in hope by drawing on sci-fi stories of generation ships. A generation ship spans the wide gap of time between planets. No one aboard at the beginning of the journey expects to see the destination. They commit… Read More
Sing Out, America! An appreciation of Listening for America
One of my favorite books I read this year was Rob Kapilow’s Listening for America, a tour through the genius of American musical theater. I was delighted to get to write an appreciation for Fare Forward. Reading Kapilow took me one step further into appreciation. He has a gift for worked examples and teaches by rewriting… Read More
Defending Dependence
My essay, "Dependence: Toward an Illiberalism of the Weak" is part of Plough's Family issue. Everyone is dependent (at least some of the time) but women have a much harder time than men pretending not to be. Hiding dependence hurts us all. On January 21, I'll be joining Ross Douthat, Sarah C. Williams and Peter… Read More
Locating Our Invisible Wounds
At Comment I wrote about how the coronavirus links us in a solidarity of suffering. But we'll have to work to retain that solidarity with the more everyday kinds of …
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