By 9/12, the day after America was attacked, I still hadn’t heard from my son Brennan who was in the Middle East, without a cell phone. He finally emailed later that day from Egypt and my relief was palpable. He told me he was fine and asked, “What kind of people would do such a […]

For some reason, this evocative photo of a heavy rainfall designing patterns on the lake reminds me of the TV commercial where a woman and child are about to take a bike ride when it suddenly begins to rain. I’ve always liked the optics of that ad (though I can’t begin to recall what it’s […]

Around 2014 or 2015, hoping to improve connectivity issues on my computer, I  dumped old documents and files. Among the clutter was a stash of email correspondence I’d saved from when my sons backpacked around the world through 37 countries on three continents. The oldest son left in April 2001. In August 2003, his brother […]

Several years ago, Dan contacted me when he began research on the 1950 killing of Bernard Doyle, his article that would ultimately be titled: “White Circled Targets Drawn in Crayon the Untold Story Behind the Tragic Shooting of Bernard Doyle at the Polo Grounds.” It’s about the murder of an innocent spectator in the Polo […]

Recently, when a neighbor’s son started medical school, he told me he would have to learn 15,000 new words in the next four years. What I found most interesting was that as a college graduate, his vocabulary already consisted of approximately 15,000 words. Although I don’t have a precise number of new terms, skills or […]

Bill Clinton Loves Being Connected to Harlem By maintaining a satellite office in the Adam Clayton Powell Building on 125th St, Bill remains faithful to Harlem. Some residents feel he abandoned the community in 2011, when he moved his main office downtown to the city’s business district. It’s unfortunate, but understandable that he, like most […]

In July, ‘Hamilton,’ the hugely popular Off-Broadway hip hop musical about Alexander Hamilton will move to Broadway. Now, there’s also ‘Clinton: The Musical,’ a comedy that parodies President Bill Clinton’s highs and lows. Besides Hillary running for president, why this sudden interest in an impeached president who’s been out of office fifteen years, and a […]

Memoir 101 by Terry Baker Mulligan “Write what you know” sounds like wise advice, but if writers didn’t experiment and break new ground, literature might have died under the weight of its own tedium. Today we know that part of the joy in writing is discovery: interviewing subjects, digging through library stacks, visiting neighborhoods or even […]

So, my hubby and harshest writing critic, who mostly reads non-fiction, condescended to finally start reading my new novel, Afterlife in Harlem. He called me from work to say, “You left this morning before I could tell you that your prologue is really good, especially the dialogue. I’m surprised that it held my interest; a […]