First Person

Italy has long been modern Europe’s foremost repository for offhand clichés. Italians, according to other Europeans, simply could not (and would [...]

My friend Barbara is exceptional in so many ways I can hardly keep track of them. She and her husband Arek [...]

A friend called me the other day to ask what I thought of the horrifying and surreal news — those were [...]

A few weeks ago, a young friend of mine who had been feeling “not right” for the better part of a [...]

Once upon a time, I was — in every way — what most people used to call a military brat. I [...]

To you, the readers of this oration of mine, my scrawl, I must immediately confess two truths. My name is not [...]

These days I’m busy compiling ghost stories. Most of them are miles away from mansions and graveyards, but that doesn’t make [...]

Here’s a little confession that, at this point in my life, won’t do a single soul any harm (and it’s not [...]

Long ago, when I taught political science to undergraduates I would stress the importance of assessing the spirit of any given [...]

Talking to my friends recently gave me all the proof I needed that we've entered the time of "covidity," which a [...]

My dog Boz died the other day. Got up on a sunny Chicago morning and Boz was flopped like a mop-head [...]

It's a bad time for Sarasota Spring. She's the 36-year-old private investigator featured in the novel I've been working on for [...]