I wasn’t even a week into freshman year when I heard the saying “You’ll never know if those are gunshots or fireworks.” Savannah College of Art and Design boasted an extravagant campus in a charming city. Robberies weren’t mentioned in our orientation packet, and neither were the four years of sirens we’d hear on a […]

A year out of college, I was finding it impossible to land a job in the journalistic profession for which I’d spent four years preparing. There were two newspapers in Salt Lake City, where I was living at the time, and neither the Tribune nor the Deseret News was interested in my unproven reportorial prowess. […]

My husband, Alan, walks through the Maine woods regularly with an ease and confidence I cannot share. He has been wandering through vast woodlands since he was 5, so I was not surprised when he saw the old fire tower off in the distance, researched the trail map and decided to hike to it. We […]

I am not by nature a risk-taker. In general I prefer to play it safe, at least in real life. But even the most cautious people can have their moments of insanity, especially in their teen years. One summer day I visited Fort Williams with my family. I had spent several of my formative years […]

Radiation saved my life. No doubt about it. People ask if I feel differently; if I view the world with a new perspective. No, not really. The internal and external radiation burn I was left with remind me several times daily that I am not done with my illness. Seven years later, internal processes that […]