Christina Capecchi

Tonight I wrote two events on my calendar: a birthday party and a baptism. They will be sanitized, scaled-down gatherings – and they will be fun – but still, it pained me to sully those blank boxes with black ink. 

The snow has begun. It is expected to last 18 hours, piling nine inches high and crippling weekend plans. The streets are emptying, the collective dash to the grocery store completed.

I was a sophomore in college when I received the little blue book, a gift from a friend who also wanted to be a writer. At the time I was editing the student newspaper, poring over buried leads and dangling modifiers.