Lies

I had a friend who was a wonderful liar. She moved into town when I was in seventh grade. She told me she had moved to Prairie Village from Yemen. She showed me Yemen on a map. Whenever Yemen is in the news, I think of her. I felt hopelessly provincial as a kid, which […]

News Flash

Yibbet Turman here, reporting from Kansas City, Missouri, where something almost happened, but it turned out nothing did. The world is looking a lot like a Chopin nocturne, due to the fact that everything almost got destroyed, but it turned out nothing did. The trees are still looking solid and strong. Except that maybe they’re […]

Distance

When I was zipping through a practice exam to use with my students, I slowed way down to read Ralph Ellison. I don’t really know anything about him. I’ve never read Invisible Man. Strange as it seemed, I was enjoying reading a passage on a test. I immediately went back and ordered it from Amazon, […]

Weightless

When I was eight, I decided to be an astronaut. I wrote to NASA. Wasn’t real mail exciting? They sent me a whole packet of information the way the shuttle worked from toilets to booster rockets. I devoured every word. Through my elementary school years, I was a great scientist. I mixed household substances to […]