My mother-in-law calls me an efficiency expert. It’s a joke. I am expert at nothing, but it’s true I don’t like to waste time. I don’t mind whiling away my time. I don’t mind napping or sitting idly and thinking about stuff. I can easily give a whole day over to the reading of a […]
Even a Tanker Fire Should Not Keep You From Writing Your Book Read More »
I’m 48 years old today. I don’t mind it. In some ways I feel younger now than I did in my twenties. I’m fitter, for sure. I sleep better. I eat better. I don’t drink so much. Nonetheless, in just two years I’ll be 50. It seems remarkable. I’ve been bouncing around this world for
I got married ten years ago today. I was never one of those women (or little girls) who dreamed of a big, elaborate wedding day. I never thought being married was a particularly lofty goal. Coupled or uncoupled, I intended to live a full life. But a decade into this joint venture with my husband and
In the 1990s I worked for the PBS station in Austin, Texas. Our offices and studios were located in the communications building, which sat in the shadow of the infamous UT Tower. The tower was most famous for being ground zero for one of America’s first mass school shootings. In 1966 a student and former
Last week I sat in the Memphis airport and waited to board a United Airlines flight. My dog was on my lap. My dog is a 10-pound, 10-year-old, double dapple miniature dachshund named Maui. Most people love Maui. She is small and cute and charming. When Maui travels with me she spends the plane ride in
I just returned from a month in Mississippi, the state were I was born and lived until I moved away at age 21. It was a deep immersion into a culture that influences me every day. The South drives my writing and changes the way I think about things. Mississippi shows up in my food preferences and
In Mississippi, roses and azaleas are in bloom. This afternoon, Mama and I will hit the garden center to find something pretty for her window box, but flowers aren’t the only things being planted in yards around here. It is municipal election season and yard signs are everywhere. Also, Easter is just days away, so
As some of you know, I’m in Mississippi for a few weeks while my mother recovers from knee surgery. I haven’t spent such a long stretch of time here since I moved away at the age of 21. I love my life in Denver, but there is a reason I continue to write stories set
I am spending a few weeks in Mississippi while my mother recovers from knee surgery. In true Tyson fashion, she is doing great and she needs me less than I imagined she would. I drive her to physical therapy every day. I cook, and sometimes my aunt joins us for dinner. I feed the cats
Southern Dispatch: Searching for Enoch on Mississippi Roads Read More »
The current president’s proposed budget eliminates funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, abolishes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, guts the Environmental Protection Agency, and slices community block grants to the bone. It gives more money to the military and, I assume, border walls. There doesn’t seem to be much logic behind the proposal, just a lot