An ancient tale. Toolbox for writers: Murder your darlings.

"Sometimes I make things more complicated than they have to be." Learn about David Whyte's poem and a podcast on writing. Moreover, what is it you revere enough to pay daily homage?

Grief meets gratitude in a Queens market, a raw Thanksgiving letter, and how writing can create a kind of Deja Vu. Michelle Zauner, CS Lewis.

On the death of a parent, buddhism, and a return to the TreeHouseLetter. How three sentences from Salman Rushdie's memoir provide comfort after losing my mother.

The Prologue of my upcoming memoir opens on the embassy roof as my father escapes with the U.S. Ambassador on the last helicopter out of Saigon in 1975. This is my origin story. Just how will those final hours and the iconic and tragic end of an era in U.S. history figure into her life and her daughter’s?

Listen to this excerpt of Raising Athena, a Memoir; A Mother and Daughter Attend West Point 30 Years Apart.

German romantic poet Friedrich von Hardenberg on teachers, Mathematics, and love, as highlighted in Penelope Fitzgeral's masterpiece, The Blue Flower.

On drifters and jobs, on Satoshi Yagisawa and David Foster Wallace, on the bookseller and the accountant. Learn about finding "the job" from both authors, about certain truths, about what real courage is. And study the Music in Prose in passages from their books.

On the yoga headstand and what I learned about writing. "You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else." Tim Cook

Alternate title: The Buddhist, the Catholic, and the Dying Man. Poetry for Emergencies, On happiness and desire, On reputation. It sounds like a bar joke but it’s better, because there’s more to this than a punchline. Listen to learn how these three gave me courage.

I like authors who make me laugh. Listen to three passages from Ann Leary's essay collection, with one on Bergdorf eveningwear, circa 2009. On writing humor.