Write what you know. Familiar advice for the writer. In the Clay Girl, the protagonist has five sisters. Ari calls them the Jewels. And they are. They are precious older sisters who, each in their own way, shape her into the person she becomes. The sparkly side of these ‘Jewels’ was relatively easy for me […]

It’s Downs Syndrome Funky Sock Day and World Poetry Day. I think the two go together perfectly. Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda Mara Mori brought me a pair of socks which she knitted herself with her sheepherder’s hands, two socks as soft as rabbits. I slipped my feet into them as if they […]

In her poem, Mindful, Mary Oliver writes, Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight… I am not talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant—but of the ordinary… My niece informed me this morning that The Clay Girl is up on Chapters/Indigo for pre-order. […]