Notebook
Puritans like me
It's commencement speech season. I have never been under the illusion that any educational institution would ever ask me to [...]
Pilgrims, pioneers, and Italians
Though I returned to the United States last summer after 30 years of living in Italy, daily events still have [...]
A sense of public decorum
A change in values is at the core of Susan Froemke's film about the Metropolitan Opera's 1960s move to Lincoln Center.
Gold medal art
Vying for Olympic glory and the art of fine writing are not so different if you look to their cores.
Cui bono
The way Italian politics has been conducted for decades can help American seeking the how's and why's of flip-flopping Donald Trump.
A new winter order
Moving from Milan to small town New Hampshire quickly alters your view of what Christmas, and winter, mean.
The sensual banquet
American and Italian sex scandals have little in common, since the former are Puritan and the latter appropriately Bacchic.
The colonial report
Eastern reporters still searching for clues to explain the ascent of Donald Trump repeat a condescending error again and again.
The big fiction
How many times have you heard someone tell you they're writing a novel? Truth is, most of the time they're not, or can't.
Reading is encouraged
If you're a freelancer and work enters your life at its own pace, your local library (no, not Amazon) can enrich the passing days.
Soothsayer
A summer vacation in New Hampshire feels like so many others until you realize its not a vacation at all.
Glimmers of love
After a quarter century in Milan, Madeleine Johnson heads home to America, but not before a nod to her city.
“Notebook” Author
Madeleine Johnson
A Midwesterner, writer Madeleine Johnson lived in Milan for two decades before recently moving to New Hampshire.