Blog
WRITING
BOOK_draft_v4_FINAL_new.docx
Let's talk about the file you're not opening. Mmmm-hmmmm. You know the one. It's got a name like BOOK_draft_v4_FINAL_new.docx, and it lives in a folder you scroll past on purpose. You know roughly how many words are in it. You know exactly how long it's been since you...
I’ve spent fifteen years making my husband sound useless
Every so often I write about Walt. How he got it in his head that sub-arctic temperatures sounded like a nice week away, and I went along with it, and came home short a few toenails. How I hand him the rental car counter, because I know he's going to chew those people...
My therapist said Candace was a gift. I asked for Prozac.
“Jealousy,” according to writer Anne Lamott, “ is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you’ve been able to muster. But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to...
How to save $27 and lose $200k
I'm at a stage in life and in business that requires me to kill some old habits. Oh, being frugal and learning to do it all on my own has gotten me here, but it won't get me where I want to go. I know that. Maybe you do too. Which is where this story comes in.
READING
What I read while waiting for a helicopter in Papua New Guinea
Let’s just say I had an awful lot of time on my hands while on vacation several years ago. That’s what happens when you deliberately leave your computer at home; AND you’ve got nowhere to go, save the local airstrip or the hotel compound; AND your helicopter can’t...
Eight Books, Eight Lessons: Why I’m Not Slowing Down
At my 60th birthday party a couple of years back, something interesting happened. A number of my friends started talking about retirement—counting down the days, making plans to "slow down," fantasizing about endless yoga retreats in Mexico and Netflix binges. They...
The Best Books of 2025: Holiday Reading Recommendations from Summit Press Authors
Every year around the holidays, I love pulling together book recommendations—and this year, I thought: who better to ask than published authors? After all, writers tend to be voracious readers who know their stuff. I asked some of our Summit Press authors to share...
Gordo lied
"This is the hardest thing you will ever do." That's what Gordo, the instructor of our Intro to Scuba Diving class, told us while he scrawled his name on the blackboard. Gordo was a big guy, nearly 300 pounds of flesh that couldn't have been easy to squeeze into a wet...
LIFE
My mother has no idea what’s wrong with her (and she’s fine with that)
On Saturday I called my mother to check on her. She's getting up there in age, and she'd been flat on her back for a couple of weeks. Zero appetite. Which, if you know my mother, is the part that should worry you. The woman has never met a casserole she couldn't...
The morning we got lost and found out who we were
It was Good Friday, roughly 6:30 in the morning, the kind of cold spring day that makes you question your life choices. Three of us — all marathon running buddies, all colleagues at the same chemical company in the next town over — laced up our shoes in a parking lot...
The half-life of relevance (and why panicking won’t save you)
Walt and I have this conversation probably once a month. Who was that woman — the one who wore purple and taught people to sell from the stage? Where'd she go? We genuinely cannot remember her name. And here's the thing: a few years ago, she was everywhere. Speaking...
I bought a cottage in Ireland. You can write a damn book
Have you put your book dream on the back burner because you can already think of ten reasons it won't work? I was watching a fox and her two kits bound across the field one morning as Walt and I drank our first cup of coffee. In the upper pasture, a herd of dairy cows...
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