Author BlogIn the Mouth of the Serpent
Colette, A Review
On a recent Saturday, my husband and I enjoyed date night at the Paris Theater. We watched the film Colette. I’m a novelist and so the film held a special resonance for me. It’s always intriguing for me to see how other women do it–how other women wrestle with the […]
Art and Representation
Representation My husband Sabin Howard can sculpt. Think Carpeaux, Canova, or Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Think Michelangelo. He says, “Art represents us. How do we want to be represented?” It’s a fair question, and answering it leads me to all the reasons I’m not a post-modernist. Boiling it down, I believe in […]
The Gottman Institute: The Art & Science of Love
The Gottman Institute: The Art & Science of Love My husband and I had a rude and rough couple of years. Sabin was briefly ensconced at the antipodes with people who thought they knew him better after 12 minutes than I did after 18 years, and they brought out his […]
Mystery of Birth
Mystery of Birth I had the misfortune to be the impecunious shiksa married into a well-to-do Jewish family. My sincere conversion to Judaism, a religion I love, slightly blunted their dyspeptic view of me but didn’t resolve it. Not that my former in-laws were aware of their […]
Empowering Women
I have raised four daughters: Empowering Women is a force close to my heart. “A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people […]
Factual Error in The New Yorker: Is this how fake news starts?
Factual error in the New Yorker: I write this post not just for myself, but for all women whose ideas were misattributed to a man, and who were told to leave it be and not to rock the boat. My husband Sabin Howard is making a national memorial, the National […]
My friend’s grandson passed
Today was the memorial service for a dear friend’s infant grandson. There were photographs placed around the room in the funeral home. It was a room for congregating, with neat rows of chairs for the visitors and tissue boxes placed at strategic intervals. Mourning is excruciating anyway, but yoked to […]
Tender Loving Care for a Marriage
Tender Loving Care for a Marriage Sabin and I came to a dark and stormy place in our marriage. That diction belies the fresh and cutting pain of such a place and time. When we both returned to the marriage, we sought help in putting things back together. There are […]
Returning to Source and Writing Again
Write again, they are telling me. You must write, Traci. It’s the new theme: writing again. The past twelve months have been excruciating. I am struggling. It’s been a year of comings and goings from my life; intermittency like a suddenly thrown grenade blew up my peace of mind. It […]
Snooty Rich Women Are Everywhere, Including New Zealand
Snooty rich women are everywhere, including New Zealand Places change but people don’t. A recent trip to Wellington showed me the commonality of human traits, especially foibles. In a land where people pride themselves on being non-materialistic and friendly, I got to experience the same self-aggrandizing arrogance that I see […]
On Love
On Love Of late, I think about love. The nature and meaning of love, the kinds of love. References to love abound in our culture. Mostly those references concern romantic love. If you play American music, you will hear all manner of songs about romance, its thrills and heartaches. Other […]
