As seen in

Check out essays and interviews that appeared in these media:


"Free Drawings"
I watch from the shadows behind the dining room window. “Free drawings!” he calls out to people and cars as they pass.


Tori and Me
Tori Amos and I live in a foster house off of Texas Highway 321. It’s temporary in the sense that we don’t matter.


Such a Long, Slow Fall: Two Stories
My head landed hard on a sharp, dusty rock. Its tip peeked inside my skin to see what I was made of.


Bleeding Out
They started out like ordinary nosebleeds.



Shoplifter
Standing in your moldy mobile home that smelled of week-old garbage, you confessed to being collared for stealing over-the-counter meds from the big box store.
 

My words stayed dry and found their way to you in your business office overlooking a crowded cross-street, or perhaps a home office where the only view is of your neighbor's nondescript beige siding. I appreciate your turning away from the window to read this.


Best Intentions
When heavy rains come, the driveways and sidewalks flood with earthworms.


Facebook Asks 'What's On Your Mind?': Selected Posts
August 22, 2011 - I wish I knew where babies come from. 


This was the first published piece where I really acknowledged that my relationship with my mother was complicated and my grief was complex.  


 

Gray February
My parents both died in February, nine years and three feet of snow apart. 


Released
The paper heart tore when I opened it, split down the middle like a dead tree struck by lightning.


It's 2006
You know these calls. They come from four hours away, and even if you answer, you know there's nothing you can do.


Dear Wooden Swing Set
My stoic backyard neighbor, this stage of life is drawing to an end. I feel your sadness, for I too am being outgrown.


One Sentence
He said it at the lunch table. Even small earthquakes send wide ripples. 



How to Make Pumpkin Bread 15 Years Later (reprint)
Dig out the recipe your mother scrawled on a pale yellow Post-It note, one of the few things you own that her hands once touched.


Circle of Life
Yesterday, my daughter found a robin beneath the slide, stiff in its mortality.


Half-Past Childhood
We're on the downhill side of parenting.


Flying Fucks
Why do my fucks keep trying? What drives them to continue working despite making such a small difference?



Four and Twenty
How did all these blackbirds get out of my pie?


Speechless
What will you do if language leaves you? If you can no longer say the things you mean, and can only access slanted shadows of the words you need?


The Future of Us: For the Ones Who Come Next
Read the essay "Explaining Makeup to My Daughter" in this anthology, available in paperback and Kindle ebook


Death of the Casita
My dad is a 1987 Casita travel trailer that gave up in rural nowhere.



Recurring Apart-ment
What I need you to know is I never meant to stay home with my children.


The History of Us: Stories of the Women Who Made Us
Read the essays "Women Like Water" and "The Hand That's Not Yours" in this anthology, available in paperback and Kindle ebook


My Soul Sings a Midnight Lullaby
Through the murkiness, a thin voice reaches me, calling out, “Momma...”


The Order of Us: Expectations, Restoration, and the Beauty of Chaos
Read the essay "Exploding into Parenthood" featured in this anthology, available in paperback and Kindle ebook


In the great words of Corey Hart, “Never surrender.” Or in the great words of Cheap Trick, “Surrender.” Biz is joined by writer Megan Hanlon to discuss the uncommon strength of giving up.



The Unknowable Weight of Origin
My five-year-old gazes up sleepily and asks, "Can you show me how to get an egg donor? Because I want to be a mama someday too."


There's No Wrong Way to Feel After Pregnancy Loss
My first feeling was shock, followed by a messy crush of emotions—disappointment, guilt, relief.

  

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir to combine grief with anger, relief with trauma, her eyes with yours.

 

May They Be Siblings Who Stay Friends When They're Grown
I haven't seen my brother in nine years.


5 Lessons I've Learned from Managing My Son's Food Allergies
The hard truth is that I can’t protect my child from everything.



10 Parenting Classes We Need
That would at least give us the illusion of being in control

Finding a Way To Keep My Mother's Memory Alive in My Garden
In death as in life, she would be surrounded by nature’s bounty.


The Strength of Surrender
Did a case worker visit my mother's house, sit with her at the same oak breakfast table where I had eaten countless Pop Tarts...


Being a Mother with Depression is Hard
Motherhood is hard. Motherhood in the midst of depression is infinitely more difficult.


Your First Mammogram Will Razz Your Berries
Hey, you cool cat. Don't get sad, get your berries razzed! Here's what to expect at your first mammogram. 


A How-To Guide To Life for the Motherless Daughter
I don’t have appropriate words to describe my mother. It wasn’t that she was determined because that implies an overall plan of action.


Toddler Socks are from Hell
Who decided on sizes for toddler socks? Are they evil? Do they want us to suffer? Because the sizes make zero sense and moms need things to make sense.


Finding Gloria
A lifelong search for an angel named Gloria from a Sears nativity that came to symbolize so much more



Back Away from the Elf
I thought we were clear of the Elf on the Shelf, but my friends fell victim. Even my husbands wants to bring “the magic” into our home. NOPE.


Why Holiday Food Donations are So Important To Me
My family used to be just like the ones who are going to benefit from the food drive at my children's school. 


How Did We Lose the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime? Nothing made sense anymore. We were told to reach across our desks and embrace the opposition, but how?


Working from home is super easy when you also have toddlers and babies and an annoying dog. This email is an example. Super. Fun.