New York Fashion Week at My House
A visit to the New York studio/living room of a family’s style director who has a week’s worth of laundry ahead of her.
Jessica Francis Kane
Entertainment for Women
When it launched, Playboy was a literary power, nude photos or not. Its offices also happened to be an interesting place to work—for women.
Arbotchery
An illustrated catalog of abuse taking place across the country, in cities large and small, where trees are being hacked, whacked, and chopped into unnatural shapes in the name of power.
Holidays-in-Law
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week, tips for a productive working vacation with your extended family.
Caught Telling Fiction
The gap between literary and historical fiction is mostly a marketing ploy--at least until a novelist meets a survivor of her story's plot.
The Noble Garden
Prisoners garden. Spies garden. Gardening is good for every soul. But a desire to garden doesn't a gardner make. A story of slaughtering plants.
The Report
An excerpt of Jessica Francis Kane's forthcoming novel, The Report, about London's Bethnal Green disaster, where 173 people died in WWII's largest civilian accident.
Brawl Between the Boxwoods
Marigolds wither, periwinkles rot, and a tree mysteriously dribbles cat urine. Our writer is in over her head, once more, with plants.
Thy Neighbor's Wisteria
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. When a reader asks about housewarming gifts, we see Armageddon in the neighborhood.
Room for a View
New York's empty balconies need filling. Our writer inaugurates a new series about urban-gardening warfare and southeastern-facing frustration.
Mixed vs. Medley
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week, we do absolutely nothing to assist a reader while coining a new phrase.
The Higher Line
When the new High Line Park opened last summer, New Yorkers lined up to be disappointed. A recent transplant finds it full of miracles.
Timescape
We preserve old buildings, why not old landscapes? Transplanted horticulturalist JESSICA FRANCIS KANE discovers a mysterious garden outside time's realm in Greenwich Village.
Curb Your Dog's Enthusiasm
New York City is a wonderland for dogs--to defecate on, and for their owners to look the other way. An argument for a more civilized scenario, where dogs aren't encouraged to kill plants.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate Family
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. We step in with some last-minute advice for a reader confused by a Christmas party conundrum: Do friends and family mix?
Pilgrimage
Many people hope to be authors, even some in the publishing business. Going back to a monastery to see both sides of the story.
Girl Lessons
Mothers and daughters don't always have the easiest relationships, especially when the daughters try to recycle the mothers with the trash. A story of aspirations, generations, and pop culture quizzes.
Easy-Fake Oven
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. In this week's installment we break down all that pre-heating nonsense, with a heating guide for 21st-century cookery.
The Party Racket
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we solve another parenting mystery: Exactly how many of your child's classmates must you invite to the birthday party?
The Rules
The laws of the playground aren't just for children. New York City parents have to keep an eye out for garbage, syringes, and disturbed men bearing toys.
Secret Gardens
Now a New Yorker, our resident green essayist brings her yardwork series to the big city, even if it means breaking into private plots.
Leaving Charlottesville
Departing the (garden) lovers' state for one that loves its cement and money more, our scribbler of the lillies Our writer realizes the crucial difference between caring about plants and caring for them.
Adverb Your Enthusiasm
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help a reader determine if her one true love is letting adverbs get in the way of romance.
Midnight in the Garden of Wood and Evil
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we address a reader's concern about her plant's feelings with stories about menacing shrubs.
Room to Read: A Modest Proposal
What better way to relax after a kid-filled day than with a nice book--and what less likely scenario can many parents imagine? For page-turners everywhere, a novel idea.
Book Digest: April 30, 2007
For a person who writes short stories, I have a funny way of reading them. I probably look more like a person scrutinizing a passing stranger on the street than someone settling down to read: skeptical, certainly frowning. Before the end of the first paragraph, I’ve already started flipping
Delphiniums, Delphiniums, Delphiniums!
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we celebrate National Gardening Month with some horticultural advice garnered from a Tri-Delt newsletter.
Catalog of Dreams
Our resident poet of the orange blossoms discovers the literary charms of gardening catalogs: reading for aesthetic pleasure, also for planning the future.
Tomato Mori
The botanical arts can be passed down, whispered along, or demonstrated with a spade. But who the teacher turns out to be can be a greater surprise than his secrets for growing tomatoes. Our resident gardener gets ready for the Fourth of July.
The Mommy Wars
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help a frustrated mother cope: how to deal with--nevermind survive--those overly nice mothers at play dates.
Book Digest: January 29, 2007
Who doesn’t want to be an observer? Who wouldn’t like to notice something others overlook? For a few days I’ve been trying to come up with a single bad trait associated with being an observer, but like dolphins and rainbows, observers just seem wholly good. Which is
Book Digest: December 4, 2006
Last month I was in New York for a week and among the many small humiliations I endured—my husband and I were auditioning our family for preschool—was this one: I had to ask a clerk in a very famous children’s bookstore if they carried any of the
Plain Air Dining
Americans love their cars--as chariots, mobile offices, and teenage make-out spots. But when did they become dining tables?
Plantmanship
What sort of gardener looks forward to winter's first frost? Our in-house green thumb doubts herself after seeing what an expert Virginia gardener--and her garden--looks like.
Book Digest: October 30, 2006
I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings. Partly this is because it is fall and as the child of an academic, autumn is the year’s first season for me, a much more persuasive time for starting over than bleak midwinter, no matter how much Champagne is involved. Partly,
American Samaritan
In the past five years the U.S. has had no closer partner than the U.K., and though it's not always a perfect marriage, Yanks and Brits can still come together to solve a problem--even on the steps of the British Library.
Daddies Unbound
The stereotype that dads don't show much skill or interest in child-rearing should have gone out when you were still in diapers—so why does it persist?
The Heirloom Ficus
When a loved one's houseplants are divided up, what you get isn't a condition of your standing as a relative, but of your ability as a gardener. Our writer has a story of memory and maintenance, and the discovery of a special bond.
BetweenTheLines.com
Tired of having your work rejected by editors left and right? The Frustrated Amateur Writers Network may be just what you need to jump-start your writing career. They won't be able to get you published--but they can help you feel better about it.
Forced: A Flower Show
Gardeners love to commune with nature. Though not as much as they love to commune with ice cream and plasma screens and loud noises and personality quizzes. Our writer reports from the middle of 33 indoor acres of plants.
The Beginning of Spring
In 1998 Penelope Fitzgerald won the NBCC Award for The Blue Flower. Since then, many of my friends have read that book as their introduction to her and been confused, or worse, underwhelmed. I always recommend starting with The Beginning of Spring, the story of Englishman Frank Reid, proprietor of
Landscaped Beyond all Recognition
We bemoan the rise of the McMansion, the slash-and-burn path of the strip mall--but the real problem may be lurking in the shrubbery.
Cottage Cheese
It was with surprise that I discovered cottage cheese a few weeks ago. My mother says I ate it as a child, but I don't remember. So cheap, so versatile, and with so much protein (more than yogurt or peanut butter)--this is good food, and you can
The Blackfriars Playhouse
Living in Charlottesville, Va., I sometimes have felt far away from the world's cultural centers. And then I discovered the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Va. Top-quality repertory in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley? Believe it. Performing in the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's
Raising the Stakes
Drooping flowers are no gardener's friend. So how can you fix them? And, more to the point, how did these things ever get by without us? A few simple ways to make the world bend to our will.
Black-Eyed Susans
Common on greeting cards and dorm room posters, black-eyed Susans, known as an "aggressive perennial" (translation: a nuisance), are underappreciated. They bloom their hearts out from June to October--that's nearly half the year, folks!--and then, as the petals fade and fall, the center turns into
Magic Step
One person's porch is another's stomping ground; one person's garden is another's view. This week: How to share the world with your neighbors or, failing that, how to suffer their existence.
Virginia Quarterly Review
In two days I'm headed to the place where my family gathers every August, my enthusiasm high despite a mixed historical record. In my suitcase: a copy of the summer issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Why? Because I'm making every member of my family read
Container Gardening
Even in urban decay, nature can find a way to thrive. This week: Making the case for making friends with your neighbors, both human and insect.
The Weed Hound
We want gardening to seem so natural, something any of us, given a trowel, can do. But the autodidacts among us should realize that sometimes help is needed. This week: How a mail-order gardening tool saved a marriage.
Insects and Expats
No matter how many ferns we arrange or seedlings we covet, many of us have a very complicated relationship with the landscape. This week: A London bumblebee needs no help, thank you.
The Homeland Security Annuals Budget
What looks better with sandbags--marigolds or bluebonnets? A privied look at how the decisions are made on what to plant and where, and ways to beautify a bollard.
Tempting but Ill-Advised Email Auto-Responses
Email can be a time-saving, productive tool; that is, except when your friends and family are the ones behind it.
Home: An NPR Radio Expedition
Visits home can wear down even the best of us, but when heard in excruciating detail can become absolutely…excruciating. Jessica Francis Kane presents an audio adventure at her parents’ house.