These scenes from my life in Boston — when my wife Carol and I lived there many years ago and during our recent work there on "More Words That Make a Difference" — employ a number of words that appear in that book, with illustrative sentences from the Atlantic Monthly.  Continue reading...

Back when I went to high school (that would be in the dark ages when our cave classrooms were lit with Survivor-style torches and we chiseled hieroglyphs onto the walls) I did really well in English, social studies, and law. But I barely survived math.  Continue reading...

Irving Berlin knew it when he wrote, "From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam." Emma Lazarus knew it when she wrote, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Abraham Lincoln knew it when he wrote, "Of the people, by the people, for the people." And Thomas Jefferson knew it when he wrote, near the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and, at the very end, "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."  Continue reading...

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is just around the corner. As the website explains, "Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved." Visit the NaNoWriMo website to learn more.

Michele Dunaway teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, but she has a double life: she's also a best-selling romance novelist. Michele has some compelling advice to teachers of writing: "teach the basics first and worry about voice later."  Continue reading...

It really bugs me when I hear someone use the word "individual" when all they mean is "person." It happens a lot with law-enforcement spokespeople. They also tend to say "vehicle" when they could say "car" or "truck."  Continue reading...