On the strange new stresses people will experience whenever “reopening” happens — and how patience will go a long way as we wait. “Because there’s no predicting exactly how things will look virus-wise in a few months, so much tentative rescheduling may end up being re-rescheduled… In reality, trying to restart the parts of life that have been on hold because of the pandemic feels like doing a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle while the picture on the box keeps changing.”
— In Search of Lost Time (The Washington Post)
On the mixed feelings of having the whole family back in the nest together: “I have a tendency, when I feel trapped, to sense a false permanence. I don’t think, This is my life right now. I think, This is my life forever. I panic. I forget, although I’ve learned it countless times, that every stage of life changes, then ends.“
— This Togetherness Is Temporary (The New York Times)
Some more selections:
The New York Times
I’m So Excited for 40th Grade
The Great Fortune of Ordinary Sadness
To the Type-A Person Having a Meltdown
Hard Knock Life: What Are The Turtles Telling Me?
Shopping for a Car — And a Teenager’s Future
My Adventures in Accountability
Sing, O Muse, of the Mall of America
Wishing Away the Wish List
The Power of Place
How to See More Of Your Best Friends? Move Away
When the Honeymoon Is Over: Settling Into Real Life
In Praise of Name Tags
Homework and Consequences
“Hookup Line”
And Then the Dog Died
Finding Friends in a New Town
Telling the Kids: We’re Moving
Raising — and Understanding — the Class Clown
Rekindling a Love for Dinner
The Washington Post
This Novel Has a Cat Narrator — And It Had Me at Meow
Look to the Lessons of Theater Kids
Learning From Our Mistakes
Teaching Girls to Save Their Own Lives
This Shop’s Walls Can Talk (In 140 Characters)
The Paris Review
The Case for Seasonal Sentimentality
Lit Hub
Why, Exactly, Do We Have Subtitles on Books?
Surviving the Ordinary: Why We Need Memoirs of Regular Lives
Stealing Stories, Book Tours, and Staying Off Twitter
Girl Scout Heart, Henry Miller Mind
Garden & Gun Magazine
Soda Shop Time Machine
Southern Women: Lee Smith, Storyteller
Expand Your Southern Canon
The Los Angeles Times
It’s Not the Celebrities You Mourn For
Salon
Wearing Someone Else’s Scrubs: The Comfortable Cotton of the Road Not Taken
Publishers Weekly
Think Before You Link
Brevity
An Egg-Poaching Pep Talk That Is Definitely Not a Metaphor for a Writer’s Career
Bustle
Stay With Me Explores How Infertility and Loss Can Test a Marriage
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
Literary Pet Names Using Puns Unworthy of Their Namesakes
MORE Literary Pet Names Using Puns Unworthy of Their Namesakes
A Usage Guide to Timely Phrases Beginning With “As” and Their Lowercase Abbreviations
Philpott often interviews fellow writers — from the latest up-and-coming novelists to celebrity authors such as Sally Field — both live onstage and in a variety of publications. She also profiled authors regularly for six years as founding editor of Musing, the digital magazine of Nashville’s legendary independent bookstore, Parnassus Books.
A few samples…
