Radical rightwing assault on female reproductive liberty has grown like a pustule on the American body politic and is ready to release its toxins far and wide. This ugly growth explodes from the confluence of deep desires to control women’s reproduction and limitless greed for power. Votes translate to muscle in Washington DC so the powers that be are more than happy to feign an achingly principled objection to abortion if that posture opens the spigots for rightwing money flowing into their re-election coffers--since re-election (by whatever means necessary) is the ONLY currency of any worth. Dressing themselves in [...]

I used to joke that it’s great to live in the Midwest because any direction you travel is a vacation. More interesting, more beautiful. Not so these days. I’ve come to appreciate the quiet beauty of Midwestern landscapes. Yes, there's climate change and the reality that coastal living brings visions of sinking into the sea or rising into the sky in smoke and ashes, so the Midwest seems relatively safe. But I think it’s also the gift of dog walking. Dogs need to stick their noses into every tuft of grass where a mouse might be quivering, to stand frozen, [...]

I admired this carefully crafted novel in some ways but was ultimately unsatisfied by it. Per usual with Ishiguro, it is thoughtfully structured and narrated in the first person by an unreliable narrator whose inner reality we gradually discover as the story proceeds. Very briefly, the narrator is a man living in England whose parents disappeared in Shanghai China when he was a child living there. He assumes their disappearance related to the opium trade and as an adult becomes a detective in part to try to locate them. The language, as in other Ishiguro books, is precise and can, [...]

Last month I bought pie weights which I don’t use often but now have available in lieu of random oven-proof objects to hold down a pie shell for blind baking so that it doesn't bubble up in the oven. Yesterday I bought a meat mallet. I will no longer pound chicken breasts with a hammer to thin them for chicken piccata. I almost bought a Japanese spider strainer but decided I may not need one because I have a slotted spoon and a traditional strainer. Though the old strainer is dented and a bit rusty, it will suffice.   I [...]

  March 20, 2022Today a friend forwarded me a NYT article entitled "The Many Uses (and Abuses) of Shame" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/books/shame-machine-cathy-oneil.html?referringSource=articleShare3/20,22(Jennifer Szalai). The article focuses on a new book, The Shame Machine, by Cathy P'Neil, among other subjects. I was interested in the topic because I wrote two books on shame (The Shame Experience, and Shame in Context: http://susanbethmiller.com). The NYT article got me thinking a bit about constructive or what I'll call "maturational" shame in the context of fiction I have written, particularly my recent novel, A Beautiful Land, which, you may detect, I am trying to market. I had [...]

Along with many others, I have been very concerned about efforts to restrict voting rights throughout the country. In Michigan, where I live, a number of organizations are teaming up to try to place a measure on the November ballot that will enshrine critical voting rights in the State Constitution. I am working with Voters Not Politicians, the group that made a tremendous effort to pass Proposal 2, which ended partisan gerrymandering in Michigan by creating an independent citizens redistricting commission. Also involved with the current effort is the ACLU, which worked successfully to pass Promote the Vote into law [...]

Literati bookstore in Ann Arbor hosted me and podcaster Doug Wheeler (podcast, From the Belly) in conversation about my new novel, A Beautiful Land. Doug is a wonderful interviewer and it is always fun and interesting to talk with him. Literati posted the virtual event on their YouTube channel   https://youtu.be/1I868hIcP3U