Essays

I have argued online more times than I care to admit — in comment threads under longform journalism, in the unruly back-and-forth of Twitter, in the less performative but still fraught spaces of Facebook groups. Some exchanges fizzled into productive curiosity; others lodged in my chest like a splinter of embarrassment. Over time I began to notice patterns: arguments that preserved curiosity and dignity felt different. They left me thinking,...

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I have a habit of trying to say too much. Sentences pile up like luggage at a station: necessary items, a few souvenirs, and always one thing I convinced myself I absolutely needed but never use. Writing a short, stubbornly honest reflection forces me to leave the excess on the platform and board with only the essentials. Here’s how I do it — the method I return to when I want something brief, clear and a little blunt about what I...

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There are moments when an opinion feels like a small, hot coal in my palm — impossible to ignore, irresistible to fling into the conversation. Other times the thought is a cooler ember, better kept tucked away until the light can reach it without burning something fragile. Learning when to speak and when to hold back is less about self-censorship and more about social precision: knowing what an idea will do in the room, and what I want it to...

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I remember the first time a review landed in my inbox that felt like a small, cold knife. It wasn't a Goodreads one-star or an anonymous comment on a recipe blog; it was a thoughtful, sharp appraisal from a freelance editor who had paid for my workshop and then wrote back to explain why my piece had "missed the point" and felt "self-indulgent." For a while I read it the way you examine a bruise — poking to see if it still hurts. I wanted to...

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I have sometimes treated books like possessions to be acquired rather than companions to be kept. For years I read with the sense that each book was a ladder rung: climb far enough and you become smarter, more useful, more accomplished. It is a satisfying model — tidy, measurable, efficient — but it flattens an experience that can also be warm, messy and intimate. Reading for companionship asks a different question: not "What can I master?"...

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I found the book in a secondhand shop that smelled faintly of dust and lemon-scented cleaner, a place where time gathers like lint in the corners. It had no host of five-star endorsements on its cover, no bolded "Modern Classic" stamp. The spine was creased, the paper slightly foxed. Its author was someone I had never heard of; the novel itself had been out of print for years. I bought it because of a line printed on the back jacket—an offhand...

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