Shirley Jackson’s Lottery as Allegory for Fraud Prevention Laws (I’m going to spoil an eight-page short story easily found on the internet, so maybe read that first if you haven’t already read The Lottery.) The Lottery is set in a small, unnamed, presumably American community where inhabitants are excitedly gearing up for the annual event […]
A Day in the Olympic Peninsula This is an excerpt from an upcoming nonfiction book titled Hermit Crabs that chronicled a year-long trip in a travel trailer with my family of five people. Lauren is my wife, and my three boys are named Wolf, Bear, and Lynx. This excerpt was about a day spent on […]
Comédie des Toilettes I find my cross-cultural comparisons spend a lot of time on issues related to the bathroom. This isn’t out of an overtly crude sense of humor; it is merely that, from my experience, failure to quickly understand local cultural mores on waste disposal will inevitably result in disaster. Whether it is navigating […]