Non-Fiction
- “Corona (of a star, etc.)” Harvard Review Online, April 3, 2020
- On Edward P. Jones, B-Sides Column, Public Books, May 2019
- “Assigned Reading: On My ‘Literatures of Migration Course'”: August 2018
- “A Christmas Mitzvah” read on NPR by Susan Stamberg, as part of “Hanukkah Lights,” December 19, 2017 (audio)
- “Impossible Math” The Harvard Review 50th Anniversary Issue (print edition, May 2017)
- “Welcome Home” Tablet, October 26, 2016
- “A Gutsy Move” O. Magazine, May, 2014
- “Dynamic Cities: Urban Renewal in Art and Life” Orion Magazine, May/June 2013: Preview
- “The Lost Boys of Penikese Island” (Boston Magazine, June 2013)
- “Walker Evans, Kitchen Wall” (Gastronomica Magazine, 7/12)
- “Distance Education” (Boston College Magazine, Fall 2o10).
- “Dora, Barbie and the Recalls” (Op-Ed, The Boston Globe, 9/0; International Herald Tribune, 9/7/07).
- “Mitzvahmakers.” (Wondertime Magazine, 11/07)
- “The Long Good-Bye” (Parenting Magazine, 8/05)
- “On World and Town, by Gish Jen,” Judicial Review.
- “Migrate,” The Seneca Review,: The Lyrical Body: Poets and Essayists on Human Difference. (Spring, 2010, Vol. 39/2 – 40/1).
- “He Goes” The Official Catalog of Potential Literature, Ed. Ben Segal (Cow Heavy Press, 2011). 21. Reprint: Continent, 6/2011.
- “Play” Self, September 2004.
- “Where Imagination Meets Memory” Wesleyan Magazine, Summer 2004.
- “Recommendations: Bonnie Burnard and Jose Saramango” Post Road, Vol. 5 (Autumn, 2002)
- “On Being Still” Self, July 2001. 165-166.
- “Detail Work” Boston College Magazine, spring 1999: 33-35.
- “Two Baths” Shendandoah 47/1 (Spring 1997): 62-72.
- “Three Mothers” Boston Review XIX, 2 (April/May 1994): 32-33.
- “Un Bruit Assourdissant: Entre Mot et Silence dans La Jalousie de Robbe-Grillet (“A Deafening Racket: Between Word and Silence in Robbe-Grillet’s Jealousy“) Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Foreign Literatures XLIV (Spring 1990): 28-36.
Non-Fiction in Anthologies
- “A Double Kind of Knowing” Passing the Word: Writers on their Mentors, Jeffrey Skinner, Lee Martin, eds. (Sarabande Books, 2001). 125-130.
- “Gathered” Why I’m Still Married: Women Write Their Hears Out About Sex, Love, Betrayal, Loss and Who Does the Dishes, Karen Propp, JeanTroustine, eds., (Hudson Street Press/Plume, 2006). 143-156.
- “Something to Tell You” Searching for Mary Poppins: Women Writers Write About the Intense Relationship Between Mothers and Nannies, Gina Hyams, Susan Davis, eds. (Hudson Street Press/Plume, 2006): 99-112.
- “Once Upon a Time: Playing with Time in Fiction” Now Write! Fiction Writing Exercise From Today’s Best Writers and Teachers. Sherry Ellis, ed., (Tarcher Books/Penguin, 2006). 51-53.
- “And Then She Drowned” The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Contemporary Women Writers on Foremothers in Fiction, Ed. J. Kolosov (Lewis-Clark Press, 2oo3): 136-142.
- “Two Baths” Best American Essays, 1998, Robert Atwan, ed.; Cynthia Ozick, guest ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999): 146-156.
Book Reviews
- New York Times Book Review, July 5, 2019, “The Roving, Kaleidoscopic Vision of Peter Orner”
- New York Times Book Review, August 5, 2016, Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place
- New York Times Book Review, January 25, 2015, Esther Freud’s Mr. Mac and Me
- New York Times Book Review, April 7, 2013, Dennis Mahoney’s Fellow Mortals
- New York Times Book Review, May 27, 2001, Suzanne Berne’s A Perfect Arrangement
- Chicago Tribune, April 23, 2000: Francine Prose’s Blue Angel
- New York Times Book Review, August 15, 1999: Nikki Gemmell’s Alice Springs
- New York Times Book Review, August 16, 1998: Susan Dodd’s The Mourner’s Bench
- Chicago Tribune, April 12, 1998: Jane Smiley’s The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
- Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1998: Nancy Lemann’s The Fiery Pantheon
- Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1997: Jonis Agee’s South of Resurrection.
- Boston Globe, March 23, 1997: Elizabeth Berg’s Joy School.
