At a writers conference last year, thriller author Sarah K. Stephens and I had a great conversation about violent historical patterns. I mentioned that I'd heard someone suggest that the number of US serial killers in the 80s might have something to do with their being raised in post-WWII households by traumatized parents, but Sarah, a developmental psychologist, warned that "root causes" didn't tell the whole story. In her field, for example, violence is being studied as con

I'm writing this at the cabin in WV and looking at the laundry, heaped with Life is Good socks and Duluth Trading Company shirts, thinking that together, my husband and I are only five Humanities Degrees of separation from owning a closet full of Ed Hardy gear. But this is my bubble, and I like it here. And isn't it funny how bubble shaming is already over? After a year like 2017, I guess not. And yet, 2017 was awesome to me as a writer and a professor, so I have a big sentim