Theoretically informed memoirist punching midlife in the gut.
My article was published in TIME Magazine! Here it is, actually in print (only) and on shelves across the nation between April 12 and July 12, 2021. I had a friend say she saw the issue at an airport. I mean, come on!
Read More I’m a ‘real’ writer!Back when I had the luxury of sitting on my shrink’s second-hand couch in her excessively white office, a box of tissues in arm’s reach next to a clock tracking each of the fifty minutes, she would ask me to close my eyes and think of my safe place. She’d say it could also be […]
Read More Home in a BasketDear Baby Girl, You said that what you see happening in our country makes you sad. You are 12 years old now, my love.You know that Santa Clause isn’t real, and now I have to tell you the truth about America.One nation under God indivisible with liberty and just for all, isn’t real either. You […]
Read More A Letter to My Daughter: We can be better than what you seeToo depressed to get dressed, she threw on a pair of dirty yoga pants and kept the tank top on that she slept in, which she had also worn the day before. As she rubbed a raging headache, leftover from the marital spat the night before, she felt like just another failing, frumpy mom-wife with […]
Read More At What Age do Girls Learn to Hate Themselves?Therapy = boundaries = impervious to sharp objects.
Read More How to be Impervious to Sharp ObjectsWe have all noticed that everywhere we go today, people are staring at their phones. If you are not one of those people, maybe you’re the one that puts your phone away to try to be more present, only to leave you feeling like the sober person at the party, annoyed and alone in a room full of tech-drunk people.
Read More Are we hooked on our devices? Are we hooking our kids? Take the No Tech Challenge.Listen in on my radio interview in the “Parental Guidance” segment with Amy Bell, on CBC Radio One’s Early Edition with Stephen Quinn as we discuss how body image effects our kids. Read more on the topic in my Scary Mommy article, How to Talk to Your Girls About Body Image. (Segment starts at 10:56, ends at 18:22)
Read More My first ever radio interview! Listen in on CBC Radio One’s Parental Guidance segment with Amy Bell as we discuss body image.In my tears was a lesson it took me my whole life to learn. You don’t have to believe in yourself first to do anything you decide you want to do. You have to be willing to be scared and do it anyway. Believing in yourself is what happens once you see, behind all the fear and doubt, who you really are.
Read More When in Doubt, Do it Anyway: How to Overcome Your FearsThe truth is, I don’t know if I can do it. My subconscious has been regularly jolting me awake from deep sleeps in terrified heart-pounding panic, having to catch my breath just lying there. I don’t know if life will get in the way. I don’t know if the high-level math will be too hard, the physics beyond my comprehension level. I don’t know if I can afford it and endure over the long haul.
I do know that if I don’t try, I’ll end up, if I’m lucky, in some communications job in some office pushing some agenda that I don’t really care about wondering if I could have been a scientist.
Read More Mom Goes to CollegeThis was a constant hanging on the wall of my Irish childhood. This is the actual plaque that still hangs on the wall of my mom’s house today. I asked her to send me a pic of it because I’ve always loved it – and because it’s St. Patrick’s day, a celebration of a heritage […]
Read More Never Give Up: The Irish Way
Shannon Master 