“I loved your book,” the email said, referring to my memoir, Mother of My Invention. “I would love to talk to you about mental health if you are free.” This message came a couple of weeks ago from a woman in my community I’d never met. She said she was a schizophrenia and suicide attemptContinue reading “Ideal Reader”
Author Archives: Janice Airhart
What’s Your Plan?
A goal without a plan is just a dream I scrawled this message about goals on my classroom whiteboard in the spring of 2012 during our campus Career Day event, hoping to instill in our pregnant and parenting students (notoriously bad planners) the importance of planning toward their futures. I’m happy to realize that soContinue reading “What’s Your Plan?”
Covi-Pause
When Covid-19 shut down America in March of 2020, it seemed the world had gone crazy. Nobody knew how to deal with a global pandemic; we took a well-reasoned pause to assess the imminent danger. The escalating death toll was frightening. Medical personnel grappled with the idiosyncrasies of the coronavirus and how best to treatContinue reading “Covi-Pause”
Literary Overload
I recently returned from the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference in Kansas City, Missouri with a backpack full of flyers and a head full of the sights and sounds of thousands of creative writing educators, publishers, and literati in one place. The Kansas City Convention Center is huge, and it’s spread overContinue reading “Literary Overload”
Eating Crow
Life is full of incidents that teach humility, and I’ve met quite a lot of them. Being the kind of person who charges ahead with my own agenda, led by an innate curiosity and dogged determination, I often get smacked upside the head with the facts. Sometimes things are just harder than I expect; sometimesContinue reading “Eating Crow”
Success
What is success? Maybe it’s like pornography: you know it when you see it. Unfortunately, the signs aren’t always visible, and we can’t know if a person who seems successful to us feels as though they are. For too many of us, complete satisfaction is just beyond ever-moving goalposts. We’d be a lot more contentContinue reading “Success”
Assumptions
When Zoom became our primary connection tool in 2020, I both loved and hated it. It allowed me to stay home and attend to business or communicate with others from the comfort of my home. I’m an introvert, and I don’t easily jump into large-group conversations, not because I don’t have anything to say, butContinue reading “Assumptions”
Epic Fail
Science experiments don’t always work as intended. Sometimes, they fail miserably. When things didn’t go as a procedure predicted, I’d tell students, “You learn as much from failure as you do from success. Sometimes more.” Perhaps the girls thought I was just trying to make them feel better, but I was serious. There’s always wisdomContinue reading “Epic Fail”
Killing Time
When I was in eighth grade, near the end of what I remember as last period earth science class, the clock hands slowed down to the pace of sedimentary rock formation. This was when clocks still had hands, of course. Absurdly, those hands sped up during our lunch break and when I tried to squeezeContinue reading “Killing Time”
What’s in a Name?
I once heard someone advocate for a minimum age requirement for getting a tattoo by comparing body art to a drunken climb up a water tower with a can of spray paint. “At seventeen, you might think it will impress your girlfriend to scrawl her name inside a heart where everyone driving by can enjoyContinue reading “What’s in a Name?”
Janice Airhart 