For playwright Ruhl, life has been a history of teachers. From her parents, through her kindergarten and school years, through college and graduate school, to professional life, Ruhl learns from everyone. She shows us how even the smallest moment can instruct, how a child can teach a parent, and how true creativity demands a willingness […]
Alex Mercer’s childhood has been far from idyllic. Orphaned as a child in southeastern Europe and eventually landing in the U.S., she endured a horrific foster family experience before ending up with a couple living in the San Francisco Bay area, who’d recently emigrated from South Korea. Now 18 and a freshman in computer engineering […]
“What does ‘the beginning’ look like?” It unfolds here as both poetry and revelation, an invitation to recognize the connection between past and present. Rather than presenting history as something distant or hidden, Smith emphasizes that our origins—our art, our inventions, our knowledge of how to cultivate land, our propensity for exploration, and more—are plainly […]
On their way to deliver a birthday cake to Granny Goat, our spirited heroes carefully steer clear of the direct path, which would take them under the bridge where the fearful troll dwells. The bumpy journey down the river has many twists and turns, and the elaborate multilayered confection nearly meets a watery end. But […]
Roughly a year after the nuclear meltdown that precipitated the events of Godspeed, Cedar Key (2024),the remaining few hundred residents of the titular locale—about a quarter of its former population—are slowly rebuilding their economy and infrastructure. Despite damage from nuclear fallout and extreme weather, the locals have managed to start breeding chickens again and have even […]
Sir Gabriel Ward’s daily movements are so predictable that his fellow King’s Counsels can set their watches by them. So it’s quite a shock when he emerges from his lodgings to find the body of Lord Norman Dunning, the Lord Chief Justice of England, on his doorstep. Constable Maurice Wright, who responds to a call […]
It’s hard to be a mother in any society, but for Muslims, the stress of modern parenting’s contradictory demands can sometimes seem impossible to bear. With this book, bint Rehan offers “an excavation of the environment in which we parent, as digital citizens often in secular societies, and how that impresses so intimately upon us […]
In the time she’s not spending wrangling her 6-year-old twins, Taylorsford Library director Amy Muir is busy with an arts festival and the premiere performance of her husband Richard’s new dance company. The Friends of the Library association has invited true-crime author Maureen Dryden to speak at their book sale; her best-known book claims to […]
At 5 years old, Jane watches her friends run and play while she sits at the window, her spine crooked from tuberculosis. Eventually, she learns that playing outside actually makes her body stronger. The power of play informs much of Jane’s adult life. Spurred by a visit to a settlement hall in London that provides […]
Just over halfway through McAndrew’s collection comes a story called “Crime and Punishment,” a title that would accurately describe most of these tales, which often reckon with incarceration, guilt, and the aftereffects of violent acts. Sometimes that reaches baroque heights, as in “The Storyteller,” about a couple named Wayne and Nancy who buy “the house […]