I am a college app essay coach, and I need to be reminded of this advice as much as anyone else. I have three children. One is in...

Here I go again, preaching about college essays and how to approach them. Here I go again, trying to convince a teenager it's fun and...

One of the questions adults often ask teenagers or even young children is "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And in the latter...

One of my favorite exercises to help ease my college app essay clients out of their heads and into a more safe, creative, authentic space...

If you google "college essay topics to avoid," you will find things like personal tragedies, obstacles in sports, immigrant stories,...

Parenting is one long goodbye. The college app process brings all the layers of this fact, culminating all the years of tiny practice...

I finally did the thing, though not legal yet. Life is so hard and complicated. Waiting for the right time to let go of my married name...

“I think this is it,” I said, stopping in front of the door under a green awning. I squinted to be sure I was seeing the number...

I am yesterday. I am today. I am a piece of chocolate cake in the slimy mucus of my belly. I am a leaning-to-ward. A desire. I am hands....

I woke up to a text from my daughter this morning. "Here, safe!" the text gleefully proclaimed. My three kids and their dad landed in...

I can’t stop smiling when my son lands his side rails. When a whole room of boys cheer for one. One kid wears a flat billed hat and jeans...

Don't get me started about orgasms organics plastics politics probiotics chickens chattel chill out. Don’t get me started about those who...

Yesterday when I drove off Exit 21, the Maple that had been deep red had faded into the color of rust. For weeks, I have loved her...

Sometimes my brother and I pressed our foreheads against the window in our mother's office and watched the college students in the...

Something about the Islamic prayer Reverberating in the dusty boney dog and cat-infested sweet potato food cart courtyard outside the...

If I didn’t write this poem, you wouldn’t know the hum of my dishwasher, the way one dish clinks against another, the strum of my son’s...

The Looking Tree Originally Published in Rock and Sling in 2015 A little boy sits in a tree, waiting for the bus to bring his sister...

Mona, my high school senior AP English teacher, used to say that her dog was more intelligent than her students. She described how her...

Lately, I'm trying to lean into what is rather than what I want. I wish I could make that a very active, confident sentence. "I am...

Let me just get right to the point. Do you know someone who needs help with college application essays? Are they stressed about writing...