Journal
Letters from the desk
9 May 2026
On reading footnotes
Most people, when they read a book, treat the footnotes the way they treat the chairs in a hotel lobby — they assume someone responsible put them there, they decline to sit in them, and they continue on to the bar.
Continue reading → 3 April 2026The Marblehead notebook
The town in which Martha Bancroft lives is a real one. The cottage on Front Street is invented. The cat, regrettably, is real.
Continue reading → 28 March 2026A Venetian provenance
Provenance is a discreet word for a noisy thing. It says: this object was somewhere once, and is somewhere else now, and the reason for the difference is a story we have agreed not to tell loudly.
Continue reading →More entries arriving once a month.