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Author: sly

[Lost in Translation]

March 4, 2022 ~ sly ~ Leave a comment

[Written while standing on my proverbial soapbox] An unsung talent of an effective writer is making anything accessible. Access may seem odd when applied to language since we think of it more in the context of doors or shelves—how it captures an ability or permission to attain what may be denied to another. Steep in … Continue reading [Lost in Translation]

Learning to Believe in Ghosts

February 28, 2022February 28, 2022 ~ sly ~ Leave a comment

[Written when I should have been doing my taxes] In Sapiens, Yuval Harari argues that the ability to conceive of imagined realities has permitted humans to thrive as a species. Supposedly, we are the only creatures that can communicate in the abstract. We have devised belief systems, supranational organizations, proverbial lines that define one nation … Continue reading Learning to Believe in Ghosts

How to Live Happily in a Dystopian Novel

February 24, 2022February 24, 2022 ~ sly ~ Leave a comment

[Written on my phone when I should have been sleeping] The world is crumbling, and I have never cared more or less than at this moment.  Languishing? Yes, thank you, how are you? Don’t worry about me—I, like many of you, am feeling the walls caving in. (The air seems a bit thin.) We just … Continue reading How to Live Happily in a Dystopian Novel

Loves and Expectations

February 21, 2022February 21, 2022 ~ sly ~ Leave a comment

[Written while waiting in line for coffee] I wrote my first story in kindergarten. It was a sentence long about a horse running away from a farm but eventually returning because the stories of my childhood were supposed to have happy endings. These stories were also supposed to have pictures, so I drew the horse, … Continue reading Loves and Expectations

Song of the South | A Requiem

August 21, 2021February 21, 2022 ~ sly ~ Leave a comment

[Written with a white-hot urgency] I grew up in rural Virginia—the sort of rural where the roads lacked lines until recently and the bridge we required to circumvent a twenty-minute drive took nearly ten years to be replaced. In winter, our backroads were lousy with ice and ushered in snow days for the county. And … Continue reading Song of the South | A Requiem

Afghanistan | A Grammar of Regret

August 16, 2021February 21, 2022 ~ sly ~ 2 Comments

[Written with a heavy heart] Afghanistan was my honeymoon. My husband and I moved our wedding forward when orders dropped for me to deploy, so I arrived a day before the 2010 elections. I had deployed to Iraq the previous year and spent the eve of my twenty-fifth birthday in the prone position during an … Continue reading Afghanistan | A Grammar of Regret

My Terrible Roommate

September 6, 2020February 21, 2022 ~ sly ~ Leave a comment

[Written while trying to come up with the next plot twist in a manucript] It is 2020 and a Monday, the 2020iest of Mondays, and I find myself cross-eyed, sifting through pixels of data, wearing sodden socks of the most imposterish of thoughts. Like many of my fellow pandemic keyboard warriors, I was stuck in … Continue reading My Terrible Roommate

Collects words and sentences. Has a penchant for swooning over marvels of the English language. Always with a book and a pocket of synonyms. Descriptivist. Unapologetic em dash enthusiast.

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Recent Posts

  • [Lost in Translation]
  • Learning to Believe in Ghosts
  • How to Live Happily in a Dystopian Novel
  • Loves and Expectations
  • Song of the South | A Requiem

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