About This Blog

      In the short story, “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote, a young boy and his aunt share a holiday tradition that begins each late November. They make fruitcakes to give as gifts. The story harkens back to an earlier time and to a deep and abiding connection between the boy and his old and somewhat fragile aunt. They gather “windfall pecans” in the fields behind their house; they have to buy whiskey from the likes of a dubious character named Haha Jones. They stir and mix and bake and eventually many cakes are cooling on their windowsills.

     Capote writes that these cakes are for, “Friends, not necessarily neighbor friends:  indeed the larger share are intended for persons we’ve met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who’ve struck our fancy ” (Capote 5). They send cakes to President Roosevelt,  the knife grinder who comes to town and to the young couple whose car broke down, who spent an afternoon chatting with the boy and his aunt as their car was fixed. The couple took their picture, the only one they ever had.  “The thank you’s…the knife grinder’s penny post cards, make us feel connected to eventful  worlds beyond the kitchen with its view of a sky that stops” (6).

     Perhaps that’s what this blog is, a kind of penny postcard, words and photographs of the world around the kitchen window and beyond it. The small wonders we slow down for, the aches too, but mostly the wonders.                                          


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A Few Details:

I am a long-time Connecticut-based freelance writer.

I've had a notebook and pen in hand (and now a phone with a tiny yellow pad icon and a camera!) since I was 21, covering UConn for The Hartford Courant when I was a senior. I had the luck back then of landing in The Courant's Manchester bureau with reporters named Connie and Rosemary, Jeff and Jan and John. They told me some pretty invaluable things:

Lose the backpack. (I used to go around reporting with my college backpack across my shoulder.)

Ask good questions.

Observe closely.

And:

One day, Connie, the reporter who tended to take a look at every piece before it made its way to Hartford, read one of my first pieces for the paper. From across the room all five feet of her bellowed, “What’s this?”

           

“A story?” I half asked.

            Nah, she said, it was a bunch of facts. She said that if it was going to be a story, I had to find that person whose story it was, listen to him or her well, and then tell it. If I could put a singular face to poverty or loneliness, to a small joy or a success, a reader might see it. She might feel it.  

           I've been shaping my career around that ever since.

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I've been:
a staff writer for The Day of New London and The San Diego Tribune.

I've written many pieces for The New York Times (for the Connecticut, Metro, National, International desks and, happily, a story on the UConn Huskies for a Sunday sports page.)

My stories have appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant, Northeast, Family Fun Magazine, USA Weekend and The New Haven Register. I wrote a Connecticut Post column about being a young mom, back when I was a young mom.  I've written articles for college publications at Yale University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Quinnipiac University, Southern Connecticut State University and others. My short fiction has appeared in the journals Happy and Mediphors.

I currently write for the University of New Haven as well as the University of Bridgeport, Southern Connecticut State University, NYCitywoman.com and other publications.

I still love being out and about writing stories and taking pictures.


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http://eachdaynewgrace.tumblr.com/

Each Day New Grace: I wanted to photograph one year in the life of a beach, a stretch of about 10 miles of shoreline, with a focus most days on one particular mile. Wandering, wondering, noticing in the sunshine, fog, rain and snow, camera in tow.