Here are some that get me going:

• So make the Republicans pay for our children to go to college
• The death of a beloved writer. Surely you have a tribute
• And we just keep getting fatter
• No, silly, it’s lack of pollen that gives you allergies
• Perhaps second prize is being endorsed by George Bush. Nah, this is second prize, isn’t it?

Surely you have something to say using one of these as your news peg.

Looking for inspiration or guidance on how to write a personal essay? Look at my categories for NPR essays, parenting essays, and several other topics. All of the pieces there have been published, or have aired on the radio. If those don’t work, see the interactive calendar for more inspiration. And write on.

See a typo, a grammar flub, my (ever-present) overuse of commas? Point it out, and I’ll throw you in the pool for a monthly free book giveaway. Which book? One of mine – your choice – all of which were professionally copy edited, thank goodness.

This piece by Joe Rhodes ran in The New York Times Magazine last month, and when I tell you that it is set within the making of a Shirley MacLaine and Jack Black movie that is based on the true story of the murder and subsequent discovery of the body of Rhode’s mean-as-Texas-snake aunt, and how her body ended up in her own deep freeze, maybe you’ll believe me that there is something there for you to learn about this gnarly issue of handling strange, plain truth. Read it. Study it. See what you can learn. See if it does not liberate you just enough to get your story on the page. I think it will.

Among the Love ‘Ems this month are:

• Anna Quindlen. So glad she is back with Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
• Hector Abad’s long-awaited translation of his bestselling Oblivion: a Memoir
• Madeleine Albright’s Prague Winter. This place claims to have signed first editions
• Alison Bechdel’s new graphic memoir, Are You My Mother? The incomparable, provocative, deeply intelligent book that I simply cannot put down. For a really super good time, read this New Yorker profile by the fine Judith Thurman, then read the book
• Marian’s Partington’s If You Sit Very Still explores the territory of traumatic loss, brutality and the restoration of the human spirit

Now to my new addition to this post category, the inclusion each month of at least one new book that I would not read if you sent it to me, brought me dinner and slipped me a Bulgari bracelet between the covers.

The Leave ‘Em for this month is:

• Ryan O’Neal’s new memoir. I’ll let you find it yourself. And no, to all of you out there who claim to want all things to be fair, I do not have to read it to know it’s a bad book.

And you? What’s on your nightstand, and what books are making you back away from the display case?

Look at today’s newspaper. It’s the best teacher there is. In my newspaper, the Times Union, there is a fabulous teaching example today. It illustrates my unshakable belief that memoir is territory, and that the borders of that territory are your areas of expertise.

Today’s piece is by Michael Brannigan, a faculty member at St Rose College, a local (to me) Catholic school. Brannigan’s topic? Physician-assisted suicide? His point of view? His own, and it’s a fine read. Read it, learn from it, and rock the world with your own piece written from your own area of expertise.

Want to know more about memoir and territory? Listen in today to a teleseminar I will be hosting on the National Association of Memoir Memoir Writers. For more on that, click here. Can’t come along today? Don’t worry. Check out the NAMW site at your convenience to hear it again.

Here are some that get me going:

• Burger King goes cage free
• I love it when fact supports fiction
• I’m sorry. The average wedding costs what?
• Violence in America reaches a new low — or high — but this is hideous
• As ever, we depend on the fabulous Frank Deford to ask the hard question

Surely you have something to say using one of these as your news peg.

Looking for inspiration or guidance on how to write a personal essay? Look at my categories for NPR essays, parenting essays, and several other topics. All of the pieces there have been published, or have aired on the radio. If those don’t work, see the interactive calendar for more inspiration. And write on.

See a typo, a grammar flub, my (ever-present) overuse of commas? Point it out, and I’ll throw you in the pool for a monthly free book giveaway. Which book? One of mine – your choice – all of which were professionally copy edited, thank goodness.

Right now I’ve got a pileated woodpecker building a nest in a tree pretty on my property. Don’t know this bird? See the photo above. Cute, huh? (Yes, yes, my sister was the first to point out that we look alike. I know). Seeing him every day has moved me to a new and different place, and just what that place is will require some examination before I write about it. I’ll need to think hard what this story is about, since for reasons I have not yet identified I am finding this experience of watching and listening for him quite humbling as well as utterly uplifting. It’s more than the return of spring. It’s more.

For those of you who are without the woods, I can suggest a live camera I’ve been watching on two birds who are building a family, and whose process is being observed, commented on, and pretty much worshipped online by thousands daily. The cam is hosted by the fabulous Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. What I love about this particular form of creative inspiration is that all of you who are hand-holding, texting and sitting at work on computers can have a look as well. Here’s the clip that began what is now a live cam I keep open on my computer, oh, pretty much all day, yesterday being rewarded by watching the ultimate in parenting. And who doesn’t want to witness that?

Get ready. You’re in for some creative inspiration.

When our daughter was 5 she had many outstanding qualities. Foremost among these was that she was relentlessly literal: If you said pink, she didn’t see cerise or fuschia or mauve. She saw pink. Anything to the left of that was “purplish-pink with a little red on top.” Anything to the right of that is “kind of tannish-pink with some extra white.” And anyone who didn’t see it that way was color blind.

So it was along such literal lines that my daughter approached the definitions of what makes a holiday, who celebrates them, and why. It was very important to her to know who of our friends and relations celebrates which holiday, and just how they do it. And, in the spirit of equality, she wanted me to provide for them all. This included her imaginary friend, Bibi Geggy. He’s Jewish. He’s also divorced, and at the time in question was dating two women (one, an Irish-Catholic named Rosie Davenport), and he’s a man who travels everywhere with his sister, Acalcia, and his dog, Walter Fleischman.

But don’t get me started on his lifestyle. Since I’ve written about Bibi Geggy before, I won’t repeat myself. Anyway, why would I, when just about every day Bibi raised so many new issues in our lives, including holidays.

 Bibi is a man of faith and, our daughter insisted, he needed to celebrate Hanukkah. Having no real idea how to do this, I called upon a sister. Granted, she’s Italian and a Catholic, but the lovely man in her life is Jewish, and I knew she honored his religious traditions.

What she posed was the option of a ninth night of the great festival. Now, even nonobservant Jews know that there are only eight nights of Hanukkah, but it seems that much like the 29th of February, the ninth night of Chanukah comes around only every so often. Together we assured my daughter that the holiday celebration would include the usual traditions: the latkes, the Hebrew prayer, the lighting or relighting of the menorah—and, of course, the empty seat, this time set aside not for Jehovah, but, rather, for Bibi Geggy.

The men wore yarmulkes and my dear sister-friend, Michele Santucci, served her famous homemade tortellini.

 The night was a smashing success. In the car home our daughter consulted with Bibi Geggy, who reported that he had such a fine time at Hanukkah and that he has hoping to be back for Passover. He was.

This piece ran some years ago in my parenting column, Mother’s Day, in The New York Daily News. I am reprinting these columns here for your use in writing your own parenting views. Enjoy.

Readers, too, can kick your emotional ass, though they do so by not buying your books, not listening all the way through to your radio piece, and never again clicking on your blog.

While pretending you are writing a letter home is a good way to go, any actual employment of your family in editing your work is nothing but trouble. Reading your work to someone who depends on you for food, shelter, or sex can garner only one response: “Nice,” or worse, worst of all, “Neat!”

You get a “nice” or a “neat,” and you’re toast. Either throw the piece away or go to a class where—along with negative gratuitous commentary—the words “nice” and “neat” are also banned. And while I don’t know them personally, I do know that your homepeople just don’t have the qualifications to do this work, nor do they want them. Their kind countenance will only string you along.

But “nice” and “neat” from someone who loves you are at least encouraging. You might get the dreaded “I don’t get it” from someone who stood up and promised before God, friends, and the State of New York to honor you until the end of time.

Now what are you going to do? Explain the piece to them? It’s like begging someone to love you. It has never worked.

You need someone who is invested in your success. This can be found in a good writing group or class, where you might also meet someone whose hard work and strong critiquing skills fit your needs—and yours, his or hers—meaning you can work together forever. Many of my students have continued on in pairs for years. It’s a wonderful thing.

Here are some that get me going:

• There was a flap over this? Well, duh
• The genetic link of PTSD
• Love him though I do, this quote is just the eensiest bit self-serving
• Lookin’ good at 60 and keeping up with the times
• It’s take your dog to work day, every day
• Such good news
• Take your wand and shove it

Surely you have something to say using one of these as your news peg.

Looking for inspiration or guidance on how to write a personal essay? Look at my categories for NPR essays, parenting essays, and several other topics. All of the pieces there have been published, or have aired on the radio. If those don’t work, see the interactive calendar for more inspiration. And write on.

See a typo, a grammar flub, my (ever-present) overuse of commas? Point it out, and I’ll throw you in the pool for a monthly free book giveaway. Which book? One of mine – your choice – all of which were professionally copy edited, thank goodness.