An attractive blonde, wine glass in hand, sidled up to my husband. I could tell she was smart. She subtly moved her gaze from one end of the room to [...]

My office, right now, is a shameless jumble of multiple typed drafts of works in progress, random but important thoughts penned on index cards, carefully considered newspaper clippings, half-filled Moleskines [...]

“Let’s have a family Thanksgiving,” I said to my friend Mary, “without any blood relatives.” It was a time a few years ago when I had had my fill of [...]

My birthday in early October was not particularly noteworthy until I realized it was the day that my North Carolina driver’s license was to expire. For years, I renewed my [...]

My husband invited me to dinner last week. He made reservations at the finest restaurant in our neck of the woods: a white tablecloth sort of place, with a dining [...]

Henry’s extraordinary musical gift is filling the house again. It keeps stopping me in my tracks. His fingers move so easily — from the achingly beautiful deep sobbing of his [...]

In the newest installment of her column “The Compass Rose,” Ainslie Jones Uhl writes about California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, her own civil marriage in Brussels, and how random conversations with strangers can yield unexpected, important insights.

One of the more surprising perks of our relocation from North Carolina to California has been the thrill of complete anonymity. I did not think I would ever see this [...]

After a number of days of power outages and telephone disconnects, I finally got through to our son, Hart, whose 21st birthday was in early May. He has been studying [...]

The house sat facing the street, on a gentle grassy slope punctuated by liriope and ivy. The curving stone wall which graced the front boundary and each side of the [...]