Remember the hero's journey from tenth-grade English class? - When the main character embarks on a quest to save the world, yet they have one thing that holds them back - their fatal flaw. Often the biggest conflicts in the most gut-wrenching stories aren't the monsters that come their way but the conflict the main character has with themselves. Really a "you vs you" moment. It's the internal conflict that draws us to stories like a magnet - where we can see glimpses of ourselves in the main characters.

Hello! Hello! And a Happy Father’s Day to all who are celebrating – or being celebrated. For all of you, I’m proposing pie! Maybe not the traditional Pop’s Day dish – is there one? – but a good one, and a recipe that means a lot to me. The first time I made this pie was in 2020. On that Father’s Day, Michael and I were in our house in Connecticut, and so were Joshua and Linling, who was pregnant with the baby who, a couple of months later, would become the fabulous Gemma.

I hosted an event for paid subscribers last week! I wrote a recap here, and office magazine covered it too.Maybe it’s because Melancholia came to mind in a post a few months ago, or maybe it’s because I had nine weddings last year (!) and have six this year — I have weddings on the brain. Watching your friends get married is so lovely; watching the way some random plus one can embarrass himself is divine.

As I announced in March, once a month between now and October 2023, Dana Gaskin Wenig will take my place in your inbox and share her own extensive knowledge of, experience with, insight into, and love of children’s literature. She kicked things off with an excellent introductory post about the Moomins and the adventure of everyday life, which you should read, right this very moment, if you haven’t already.

Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.Happy Wednesday, everyone! So, in the last installment of our funtervention, I proposed that we adopt a new definition of fun—namely, that it’s the combination of playfulness, connection and flow. Not only do I think that this definition more accurately captures the feeling of fun than the traditional definition (i.e. that fun is simply “lighthearted pleasure or enjoyment”), but I believe that it corrects some of the misperceptions we have about fun.