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Nostalgia: The good, the bad—and the children’s literature
Over the past couple years, I’ve revisited a few nostalgic favorites from my childhood. It all started in a used book shop in Nova Scotia, where I stumbled across Nancy Bond’s A String in the Harp. Honestly, it let me down a bit. The dialogue felt inauthentic, staged, and horribly adult. I still enjoyed it,…
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I support Palestine because I’m queer, not in spite of it
Maybe you’ve seen the meme: Queers for Palestine is like chickens for KFC. Join me as I take on some of the arguments that the LGBTQ community should be pro-Israel. For me, I’m pro-ceasefire, pro-peace, and pro-Palestine because I’m queer, not in spite of it.
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Americans are the frog in the pot, part I: Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is a weird place to call home. Today it’s all breweries and hipsters and weed dispensaries and overpriced apartments. But growing up, it was Bland Rapids. A place so boring and unimaginative that corporations would come to town to trial new products. If the straight-laced, God-fearing people of Grand Rapids, Michigan, will buy…
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Thoughts from the 60th Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies
The 60th Annual International Conference on Medieval Studies. It all comes down to an awful lot of hurry to talk about some very old texts. But that’s America. An insistent drum whose beating makes you forget the pounding of your pulse, the rhythm of your breath, and cadence of the seasons.
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Toronto Pearson, Terminal 3, the A Gates
In an airport that welcomes 50 million people every year, I’ve found a quiet corner. Tables empty. Outlets free. Plenty of seats at the bar. Just workless workers and captains of industry, keeping one another company in a world that’s waiting, between resignation and rebellion, for whatever’s next.
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True or false?
I was 17. I should have been thinking about my summer plans, college in the fall. Instead, I found myself in my senior Bible class, staring down the gates of hell.
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America, and the joy of missing out
This Sunday was something quite special for me: the first time in my adult life that I was completely unaware that the Super Bowl was happening. Social media ruined it for me in the end—but what joy, what bliss to be ignorant of American goings-on for just a heartbeat.
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The religion of getting
When I was 18, I worked as a barista. It wasn’t a bad job. But I will never forget the trainer, I’ll call him Sean, who—in addition to calling me a “PMS-y woman” during training—one day proclaimed, “I have the greatest job in the world.”
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A week in Wales by train
Wales is mostly rural, and best suited for adventurers (of any skill level) who enjoy the outdoors, want to get off the beaten path, and don’t mind a little rain. While it’s great to have a car, it’s also totally possible to get around by train and bus.