• Be Love and Spread Love

    Every morning, I must remind myself that I must be a champion of Love. It’s not just a feeling or an emotion; it reverberates through every fiber of my being. Being the most loving person I can is the key to who I am, and my purpose in life is to spread that Love to…

  • The Confederacy of Dunces

    “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting John Swift’s aphorism about the Confederacy of Dunces is more than just a quote from a great 18th century essayist. It…

  • An Ode to the Beautiful Chaos of the Mind

    I’ve come to understand my own often complex and dizzying thought process as a vibrant medley of colors, textures, and patterns. Unlike many people, though, who find solace in the simplicity of order and the comfort of structure, I’ve learned to love chaos. Most people in my life have tried to morph me into a…

  • Bridging Global Divides

    We live in an era characterized by unprecedented connectivity and yet, paradoxically, also burgeoning divisiveness. This is why, for me, E.B. White’s call in his essay ‘Intimations’ to find individuals “big enough to love the whole planet” reverberates with a profound urgency. White’s words from December 1941 beckon us to envision a society nurtured by…

  • Setting Down to Type a Masterpiece – Photophile Musings

    When I was younger, I had a vintage typewriter that formerly belonged to a family member. It was painted pale green. I can’t recall the brand, but it still worked. In the late 90’s, though, it was impossible to acquire a new ribbon for it. Nowadays, they do produce universal typewriter ribbons for vintage manual…

  • The Trouble with Grand Plans

    Self-motivation is a strange creature. People love to preach about building good habits, as if stacking enough of them together will build you a better life. Sure, routines have their place. But no habit will save you if you don’t know why you’re doing the thing in the first place. More than anything, I’ve always…

  • What is Truth in the Age of Misinformation?

    Once Upon a Truth… In the beginning, there was Truth. No questions asked, carved into stone tablets and shouted from mountaintops by bearded men with suspiciously confident eyebrows. You knew where you stood. Reality was what the guy with the staff and the fire-belching bush said it was. These were the good old days, back…

  • The Charlatans’ Paradise

    Let’s not pretend we live in a rational world. We reside, often too comfortably I might add, in a full-throttle, glitter-drenched Charlatans’ Paradise. Our modern world has become a kingdom ruled by confidence artists in limited-edition sneakers and bespoke suits, armed with buzzwords, ring lights, and disturbingly bright teeth. Our national pastime isn’t baseball anymore;…

  • 8 Tips for Writing a Great Young Adult Fiction Manuscript

    Back when I was offering manuscript editing services, I wrote up 8 tips for writing a great children’s book manuscript. I myself wanted to dabble in the realm of children’s literature, as E.B. White did with Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and Trumpet of the Swan. However, my own dabbling in fiction has led me to…

  • From Boss B*tch to Burnout: When Empowerment Becomes Performative

    You and I probably each know someone in our lives that embodies the Boss Bitch. We all know one of those, a shimmering capitalist chimera who allegedly “has it all” and reminds the rest of us plebs that we, too, could rise and grind our way into the annals of hashtag empowerment. But that dream…