Author Archives: Theodora Goss

I’ve been teaching Ophelia “Miss Mary Mack.” Do you remember the rhyme? If you’re a woman about my age, and you grew up in an English-speaking country, I’m sure you do. It goes like this: Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, … Continue reading →

Elmore Leonard famously said about his writing, “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” Fairy tales do that, of course. They leave out all the boring parts. Because they started as oral tales, they are almost pure … Continue reading →

Here I am, trying to write a blog post! Even though I’m tired and I have a lot of reading to do tonight for the classes I’m teaching tomorrow. But it’s so easy for me to focus on everything that … Continue reading →

I know that I’ve been terrible about updating. I’m going to try to do better. The reason I’ve been terrible is that it’s been an incredibly busy month, and in the middle of that business, I’ve become introspective. I’ve turned … Continue reading →

This is going to be a fairly quick post, because I want to attend a concert tonight: I couldn’t have done that — attended a concert at night — last year. It would have meant staying in the city late, … Continue reading →

Do you have a secret story? A secret story is a story you tell about yourself, as you’re going through your daily life. We probably all had secret stories when we were children. I know I did. I was in … Continue reading →

As you may be able to tell from this blog, I’m a bit of a workaholic. The important difference for me is not between work and leisure, but between work I want to do and work I don’t particularly want … Continue reading →