Why to Get Published
"Anyone who publishes a book is immediately asked versions of the same question, "How do you get published?"I have been asked by everyone from colleagues and former students to healthcare providers and complete strangers. Behind the question used to be the assumption that the published author has access to some secret, insider knowledge. A former editor of mine spoke occasionally at conferences, a... posted on Nov 29 2023, 953 reads

Reconciliation as a Way of Life: White Women & Settler Coloniali
A descendant of White settlers of Indigenous lands, Margaret Jacobs is an award-winning author and professor of history and gender studies who has focused for over two decades on Indigenous child removal and family separation. She studies the history of the American West in a transnational and comparative context with a focus on women, children, and families. Her Bancroft Prize-winning book, White... posted on Nov 28 2023, 798 reads

How Rituals Support Us
"I dont know if I could have survived seven years of my childhood without the soul-saving rituals of my Persian culture. I grew up amid the Iran-Iraq War, which killed a million people. Besides the horrors of the war, freedom of thought and expression were severely restricted in Iran after the Islamic revolution. Women bore the brunt of this as, in a matter of months, we were forced to ditch our p... posted on Nov 27 2023, 1,714 reads

Personal Integrity in C.P. Cavafy's Poetry
"The current world situation, with war raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, presents a particular challenge to those people who wish to take a unified perspective one which goes beyond polarities and tribalism in search of justice and humanity. It is hard to know how to respond. At such a time, the gentle but insistent voice of Constantine Cavafy, the modern Greek poet, carries a welcome remind... posted on Nov 26 2023, 991 reads

A Family Reunion at the End of the World
"Have you ever been at a reunion or a big party, when the plates are empty and conversations wind down and you think about leaving? Then you hear peals of laughter, the clatter of dishes, and contagious giggles from behind the kitchen door. Thats where the real party is, as the aunties portion out leftovers to be taken home, scrape the dishes, and laugh with their hands in hot soapy water, snappin... posted on Nov 25 2023, 1,495 reads

Kinship is a Verb
"In thinking about kinship, I think its important to begin with, What are the boundaries of our kin? We can go way internal and microscopic, down to the nerves that actually inform our brain more than our brain informs our bodies, right down to the microbes, not only managing our health but informing our way of being and interacting with the world. Then [we can go] all the way out, right to our ow... posted on Nov 24 2023, 1,017 reads

Grateful: A Love Song to the World
Musicians Nimo Patel and Daniel Nahmod brought together dozens of people from around the world to create this beautiful, heart-opening melody. Inspired by the 21-Day Gratitude Challenge, the song is a celebration of our spirit and all that is a blessing in life. For the 21 Days, over 11,000 participants from 118 countries learned that gratefulness is a habit cultivated consciously and a muscle bui... posted on Nov 23 2023, 3,245 reads

Metaphors of Movement
"In his 1914 poem The Best Friend, the Welsh poet and occasional vagabond W.H. Davies pondered a timeless question: Now shall I walk, or should I ride? This seemingly simple dilemma encapsulates the modern industrial choice between slow-paced ageless wandering on foot or embracing the thrill of motorized transport, along with the attendant speed and freedom it offers, which has become such an inte... posted on Nov 22 2023, 1,804 reads

Shin Terayama: A Radical Healing, A Remarkable Life
"From his hospital bed one night, Terayama had a strange dream. He was looking at his body in a coffin. He was 47, and did not yet know he had cancer. That soon changed. After surgery, chemo and radiation, with his cancer now out of reach of medical cure he went home to face death." A few mornings later, I had a very strange sensation in my body. When the sun came up, the sunlight came into my hea... posted on Nov 21 2023, 1,761 reads

Jennifer Bichanich: Rising from the Ashes
In this deeply moving episode, Fill to Capacity podcast host Pat Benincasa speaks with writer and life coach Jennifer Bichanich. Jennifer opens a window on her experiences with profound loss, including losing her beloved husband when the church they were remodeling went up in flames. Despite immense grief and despair, Jennifer found ways to rebuild her life and discover her own creative resilience... posted on Nov 20 2023, 1,851 reads