Gerri Brightwell

The other day, my friend Jen wrote on her Facebook wall, “What in the name of my sainted Aunt Sally made me think I could write a novel? This is too damn hard.” Naturally, several of us threw ourselves into the task of encouraging her on. One friend suggested Jen bribe herself with Cheetos. Another

My middle son, Ross, has been ploughing his way through the Harry Potter series. He sits in our armchair with his legs dangling and a hefty book in his lap, and doesn’t hear when I call him for dinner. Sometimes we read together, but less often than last year when he needed help getting through

Last Friday a colleague spotted me in the supermarket and rushed over to ask if I’d watched the royal wedding. I hadn’t and she looked surprised. She said she’d stayed up to see the whole thing. There was a pause, and I filled it by explaining that I thought Britain didn’t need a royal family

I’m a wimpy runner, I’ll admit that right off the bat. I’m not someone who runs twenty miles before breakfast when it’s twenty below, which it often is here in Fairbanks. No, I’m a fair-weather runner. I break out my running shoes when the snow’s mostly gone, and the puddles of meltwater have shrunk enough