Six months ago, I impulsively cashed in some frequent flyer miles and bought a plane ticket to New York for a first-year conference I'd heard about on Twitter. It meant missing the last few days of a major work event I'd spent...

Valentine's day used to be my holiday. I was in love with love, and it was my high holy day. Yet over time, its origins became far more appropriate to the particulars of my love life than the Hallmark sentiments I once put so much stock in. A bloody massacre,...

Ten years ago, you'd never have caught me dead at a conference dedicated to "women and gender non-comforming writers." I thought I'd had my fill of female community after a terrible stint at an all girls prep school in my small Southern town....