Poetry for Emergencies and the Leonard Cohen translation of Roshi's Poem. A footnote depicts the lesser-known, closed to the public "Poe Arch" or Edgar Allan Poe Memorial at the archives at West Point

It's a powerful thing, belief. If a person believes in you, you can move mountains. Music as a gift, and a passage from Maya Angelou from her essay collection, Letter to My Daughter. 

Poetry for Emergencies. A discussion of Melody Moezzi's memoir, The Rumi Prescription, and how the mystic poet helps her deal with modern life challenges. 

This winter I received five books I own, four as gifts. What do you do when you receive a book you already own? One was Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. I pulled my copy off the shelf to read my notes, the marginalia, the pages underlined, tabbed, highlighted. What is Love? What are the two things? 

#blackhistorymonth

Happy Lunar New Year! The Vietnamese celebrate the Cat versus the Rabbit. Learn about the difference and pick up a writing tip from the songwriter and musician Al Stewart from his hit song, The Year of the Cat.

Writing the obituary is a sobering task.  The structure and getting it right. WHO was the person and HOW did she live? Writing as a gift. 

Many authors publish one or two novels; few write full-time. Fewer write for a life-time. Excerpts and ideas from Haruki Murakami's memoir and essay collection, Novelist as a Vocation. On creativity, originality, and his writing process. 

A reader loves the TreeHouseLetter because it is "pithy and practical." The pithy in this letter is about the winter solstice and Christmas; the practical is about perceptions of time. How do we manage the human construct of time, as a child and as an adult and in writing? Learn about the divided self in memoir, how time creates meaning and tension. Understanding the character of "I" and the narrator of "I" helps writers and readers understand time in their own lives. Happy and Healthy 2023! 

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Gratitude is vogue, hip, lit. It's handy and eternal, an ever-ready virtue . . . but it's the sense of duty and expectation that gives it a gloss and cheek that's a bit off-putting. In walks a fresh voice on basketball coaches and how to make the best ever soft-in-the-center, crispy-at-the-edges  chocoloate chip cookie. 

What I learn from my mother on a Tuesday morning about love and longing. How Susan Cain's new book, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Makes us Whole, helps me understand her.