One of my favorite gifts from childhood was a create-your-own story kit. It was a perfectly packaged set of pages with designated spaces to pen the world's next bestseller and illustrate pictures to go along with it. Then all you had to do was ship it to company headquarters, and—viola! Within 5 to 7 business days (okay, it was the early 2000s, so maybe longer), your book would be "published" and returned to you with a hard cover, glossy numbered pages, and, best of all, your

---The below excerpt is a chapter from my debut memoir, Temple and Ash--- I cannot focus. I cannot stop checking my phone. I am supposed to be teaching the most devout group of multilingual learners the difference between apostrophes in contractions and apostrophes that show possession, which is arguably one of my favorite topics. But I am floating above myself, waiting for the text message that will change my life. Why did I even come to work today? Then I remember that of m

Getting pregnant is easy or so it's been said Your husband just looks at you Mine too. And a team of doctors, nurses, embryologists The room is full of frenzy when I conceive I just need to put it out of my head To take a vacation, you say — as if treatment has not already swallowed my savings Because getting pregnant is simple But if it's not happening for me It might be my diet; something wrong I can't see "I told you!" you'll say when I finally have happy news to share I w

---The below excerpt is a chapter from my debut memoir, Temple and Ash--- I am sitting on the front porch watching a spring rain soak the already-damp earth. I so rarely sit like this; never allowing myself a moment to rest. To just be. But today is Mother’s Day. And the weather is kind to me, poignantly reflecting my mood. As I watch muddy puddles form across the saturated lawn, an old song plays in my head. A song from childhood. Rafi, I think. The lyrics are silly and a

I want to carry the pregnancy test around with me; a talisman for what my body still can't be convinced is true. Never mind the unrelenting nausea. The overwhelming odor of salmon in a co-worker's lunch box sending me straight to the restroom. No, it isn't enough. That could be something simple; the mere stomach flu. This thin plastic wand bearing a second painted pink line, faint as a whisper, is something solid in my hands. I can put it in my back pocket and pull it out aga