Stories

Islands are both magical and mythical. Maine has almost 5,000 islands, if you include some that lean inland. (The rocky granite coastline was the subject of a documentary film I recently produced, The Long Coast.) While the film didn’t dig deep into island life, it...

When was the last time you had permission to play, tossing out rules for a night? I attended a magic show earlier this month, an intriguing dance of entertainment and storytelling. I hadn’t thought much about magic until that night when the connection between magic...

The voice asked me if I needed help. I was lost. I had been watching astronauts emerge from the International Space Station to perform tasks in space as if I were somehow clinging to the exterior of the ISS enjoying a 360-degree view of outer space. A new voice - not...

How does one float like a butterfly, think like a bee?  Leading with questions recently sparked my curiosity during my visit to the American Natural History Museum in NYC - some more serious than others. 🙂 Filled with truly fascinating dioramas, exhibits, and...

I unexpectedly found myself in a personal experiment on my recent trip to Copenhagen: eating breakfast by candlelight. What a contrast to my usual jumping out of bed at 5am, turning on every lamp and spotlight I find on my way to the kitchen. In this moment of slowing...

Bob is a scientist, a computer scientist. He views the world as an engineer, examining how things work. I’m a historian, deep into the liberal arts, and thrive on storytelling and the examination of why things happen, not so much how. So how do we make the irrational...

As some of you may know, for the past two years I’ve been working on my memoir. I work with a writing coach and last week she asked me to write about my office. Could it be that my office could tell me more about me than any of the memories of my past? I began working...

You may not expect a book from the 1800s to be the most riveting “beach read” during my vacation to the Caribbean over the holiday break. Neither did I. What I discovered while reading The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, a short sci-fi novel from 1897, is how...

Recently, I found a love note from the 1950s sent to me by a boy named Ricky. The letter was written on a piece of fragile, lightweight and brittle piece of paper, a soft caramel brown, the blue lines of old cursive writing practice sheets handed out to us during the...

Welcome to the World’s Best Cheese Competition, where “wine is just a liquid” and cheese reigns supreme. I attended this delicious event about senses and smells in Wales earlier this month, where cheesemakers from all over the globe competed to win the title of...