The New Atlantis convened a slate of writers for a symposium on lessons to learn from covid. My contribution to the "Beyond the State of Exception" symposium is "Bad Air," a mediation on aerosols, ventilation, and vulnerability. We’re used to starting with a premise of safety and sterility. The goal of our policy and our… Read More
The Green Knight and the Elderly Gunman
First Things asked contributors for the best film they saw in 2021, and my husband and I both picked films by David Lowery. My choice was The Green Knight, and (once I had dibsed it) Alexi chose The Old Man and the Gun. Here's an excerpt from my reflection: To call it an adaptation of… Read More
Books I Hope to Read in 2022
I wrapped up 2021 with 10/11 of the books on my reading list finished. (I had ambitions of at least starting to read Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy on December 31st, but instead I took a third trimester nap). I can live with that. Past my official list, I read 117 books in… Read More
My Favorite Books of 2021
I read in two homes, across a move. I read mostly library books, across three different states where I have borrowing privileges. I read very very little on planes, between covid and a toddler who spent most of a flight trying to steal my mask off my face. I read aloud, and I do a… Read More
Lyme and Literacy in Suffering
I got to read and review Ross Douthat's memoir of Lyme disease, The Deep Places for National Review. The book is thought-provoking and unsettling. It is as much about how to endure suffering as how to address medical mysteries. In some ways, Douthat’s striving for a cure is a transposition of the same meritocratic story… Read More
Black Widow, Gymnasts, and How We Use Girls
I saw Black Widow just before the beginning of the Tokyo Olympics, and, as I wrote at The Bulwark, the juxtaposition was an uncomfortable one. The story of the girls reshaped and thrown away by the Red Room trainers isn’t so different from the story of USA Gymnastics over the last decade. With the Summer… Read More
Penance and Public Shaming
I was glad to get the chance to make my Bulwark debut with an essay on a question I've been wrestling with for some time: "What do we do with people who have committed a wrong that they themselves cannot put right?" Cycles of public shaming ebb and flow through our public discourse. Some implicate… Read More
Let the Body Testify
In the "Creatures" issue of Plough, I wrote a feature article on how women translate their pain and their experiences to make them legible to a world shaped by male norms. I was honored that this piece was recognized with a 2021 Eliot Award by Mere Orthodoxy, as well as being an Editors' Favorite and… Read More
Government Should Fail More
At The Week, I have a reflection on watching SpaceX crash rockets with my daughter and the price we pay for expecting perfection in public policy. Musk's riches allow him to comfortably risk his money. But these more adventurous investments should be made by the government, too. I want to see more failures of government… Read More
Building Community From the Ground Up
In a feature for Breaking Ground, I covered an intergenerational community that will house an order of aging religious sisters, provide assisted living for seniors, and welcome single mothers who are working on their college degrees. Accommodating all those different residents at Trinity Woods meant incorporating their needs into the design from the beginning. Corridors… Read More