In physics class my high school junior year, I learned little, and of that little I remember little. Our brilliant though irascible teacher, Mr. Whitney, did, however, impress me with one fact of nature I've never forgotten.  Continue reading...

One of my 17-year-old daughters sometimes slaps the side of her own head and says, "Stupid, stupid." I don't think anyone -- particularly not one of my kids -- should ever call themselves stupid. But I see writers doing it all the time.  Continue reading...

The day after Halloween, my Facebook feed exploded with posts about numbers. "I've written 5,200 words!" one friend exclaimed. Another claimed to have written 2,300. Someone else only had 1,500. And so on.  Continue reading...

A new play is opening tonight on Broadway, and it's a treat for language lovers. It's called "Chinglish," and it was written by David Henry Hwang, who won a Tony Award for "M. Butterfly." I had a chance to talk to Hwang about his comic exploration of the perils of cross-linguistic misunderstanding.  Continue reading...

October 20 is the National Day on Writing, an annual celebration of all things writerly. You can take part in the festivities on Twitter by using the hashtag #whyIwrite. For more information see this post from Katherine Schulten of the New York Times Learning Network, one of the sponsors of this year's event.

When I was a sullen high school student, many of my teachers demanded that we submit outlines with every essay. Forty years later, I still remember how we fooled most of them by writing our essays first and creating the outlines afterwards.  Continue reading...