by Ellen Baker

Quiet. I’m lying in the October sun on the deck of my just-rented cottage in storybook Castine, Maine, a coastal village of white clapboard houses and a glistening harbor surrounded by elms and maples dressed in their fall colors.

So quiet. Every writer’s dream?

I’m clenching my teeth.

by Kevin Freidberg

I was getting ready to go on a month long silent meditation retreat when the editor of this magazine asked me to write an article about the holidays. This was late October which meant I’d be returning home in late November. Just in time to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Now, if you’re a writer, which I pretend to be from time to time, you know that this is what writers kill for. Conflict. The lifeblood of great stories and compelling characters. I’d be coming off a month of peace, equanimity, and mindfulness only to run headlong into a buzzsaw of family dysfunction. A virtual goldmine, right? Even though the deadline was tight, I agreed to do the article, knowing the story would practically write itself.