Dear Stranger Things: we did not watch marathons of Miami Vice in 1987.

Independence Day: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman at their absolute peak. Best Fourth of July tradition.

My father taught high school journalism for more than three decades. He was once National Journalism Teacher of the Year. He was a daily reader of WaPo. He died in 2021 and I’m so glad he didn’t live to see what is happening today. Walk out, WaPo staff. This is where journalism ends.

I feel very fancy to have read this book’s FIRST DRAFT, and now it’s in COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE!!! Please go snap it up. It is brilliant from the first page!!

I am finishing edits this week on my next book: a YA about a girl whose helicopter dad has planned to move her whole family with her to college. 2025, here it comes!

Go Blue!!

A quiet moment in the predawn darkness with my tree before the bedlam, gathering, cooking, et cetera. Three years, Dad. I miss you.

Just saying, it takes a lot of freaking energy to make Christmas magical for a family. And to think I still have a day of Actual Work to get through!

This. And yes. It is.

We saw Gladiator II last night (enjoyed!). Before it was a trailer for a movie biopic in which the biopic subject is played by a CGI CHIMPANZEE. Why? Who greenlit that? How much LSD was involved in that meeting? Millions of dollars spent. Maybe I am just too old.

There are days you remember not because of any big event but because they held a sustained period of quiet joy. I had one of those yesterday. Baking with my returned college kids, listening to Christmas music, covered in flour.

on “Wonderful Christmastime,” Sir Paul McCartney set out to make a timeless christmas classic and also to figure out what every button on his synthesizer did, and he absolutely succeeded at one of those things

Simple pleasures. Went Christmas shopping with my family. Ate a nice meal in a restaurant. Drove through a Christmas light festival. In a warm bed now. Some days are good days.

I’d be so happy if my parents were here to start a political argument at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Miss you, Mom and Dad.

My desire to be interesting here is warring with my desire to be all about puppies, holidays, and coffee and not at all about politics, despair, and existential angst.

Safe travels to all those on the way to your family gatherings, and may the argument about whether to play Christmas music before Thanksgiving resolve in your favor. 🦃

All I want is a cottage in the Scottish Highlands, a raging snowstorm, and Agatha Christie novel, a crackling fire, a kettle on the stove, and a basket of emotional support pastries.

Unpopular opinion: turkey is absolutely delicious if cooked the right way.

#thanksgiving memory: I got engaged on Thanksgiving!

Thankful this week that my son is released from the hospital and that I was able to drop everything to be with him. (He’s fine now.)

I grew up as one of those library kids. No joke checking out 20+ books at a time. You know those kids that read for fun? That was me

10 shows to get to know me: White Lotus Outlander Law & Order SVU The Office House ER Game of Thrones Season 1-6 The Handmaid’s Tale Criminal Minds Better Call Saul

Are there writers out there I can follow? Does anyone have a starter pack like that? #writingcommunity #authors

This is my puppy (at nine years old) Indy.

Smoke detector battery began chirping at one a.m. BRB. Getting my baseball bat.

I love how much this is like the old Twitter, but I really hated losing the 7000 followers I had there. Stop by and say hi!

Get a hobby, they said. Doesn’t he deserve points for creativity?

About me: I write YA romance AND legal thrillers. I tell myself this because I was once a teen and am now a lawyer. My books:

I’m really hoping this is the place we all settle on. I just need one, single, solitary account where the other posters are not bots and cryp✝️o bros.