We had a funeral for Rango today. It was an altogether perfectly sad and gloomy setting for the memorial. The clouds wept with us, and the rain slithered into our coats and down our backs and filled our boots. We dug a hole—two feet by two feet—and put him in the ground.

On the second day of jury selection, we sit on wooden benches at the back of the courtroom. Over and over, the judge thanks us for our patience while reminding us of our civic responsibilities.

My brother caught a turtle in the pond near our house. She was a painted turtle, about four inches in diameter, her legs and shell striped with orange. We named her Harriet.

I know where to step. I tiptoe from plank to plank. The hallway and stairs are the trickiest spots in this old house, but I’ve mastered how to avoid the areas that creak and crackle and pop and whine.

“I think he knocked out my tooth,” I tell my husband, carefully feeling around my mouth with my tongue. My three-year-old had been in my arms, but he’d wanted to dance.

"One of my reasons for starting Creative Nonfiction was to make the genre seem more legitimate and to secure its place on serious bookshelves"

Slipping through the cracks in the emergency room

Black? Brown? African American? When your children inhabit a world you could never have imagined

"You never know what you’re going to find in the next folder."

“When experiences are common—universal, even—you can still find language for them that illuminates them in a new way”