My backyard was the first thing I fell in love with in my house 15 years ago. Read my piece on downsizing in the attached link…there’s a mistake in the Dame piece. My town, Montclair has 36,00 residents, not 6,000.
Here’s the piece I wrote for an on-line magazine, Dame.
http://www.damemagazine.com/2014/05/19/where-are-we-gonna-go
This blog began as a way to introduce the memoir I was working on, Welcome to My Breakdown. After several years, the book is done and published and available. You can buy it here or clicking on my author tab below.
This is my first non-fiction work. I wrote four best-selling novels: Good Hair; (which is available for the first time as an E-book), The Itch, Acting Out, Who Does She Think She Is? All have been re-issued and can be bought via the same author tab or through my page on the Simon & Schuster website.
My momoir (yeah, I just made it up) is about the grief that surrounded me after my much-loved mother died. It's about me falling off the cliff, from which I'd been dangling, and plunging into a cavern of depression so dark and scary that I didn't think I'd find my way out. The book is about coming out of the kind of depression that the writer David Foster Wallace called a "a nausea of the soul." Some of the stories about my smart, determined, hard-working, hilarious mother, I think, will resonate with many of you who also had formidable moms.
But the blog also about other stuff: Things that inspire, confound and interest me as a writer, a mother, a wife and as a human being. I hope you'll join my community. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
For more on me, feel free to visit my author website, like me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter.
Welcome to My Breakdown 
Beautifully written, Professor. As a Teaneck resident trying to decide where I end up post-grad, I get it.
– Cole
Hi Cole,
So nice to hear from you & read your hilarious & honest posts. Hope you’re well. Stay in touch!
I read the the article and can relate to your dilemma. I have 2 children and live in a South Chicago Suburb with a similar racial makeup. I’d love to move to a more affordable suburb, but I must always keep my children in mind, especially my black, brilliant 13 yr old son who also has special needs. I never want my children to be ‘the only ones’ so i cant consider moving. Your article resonated with me.By the way, I’m looking forward to reading your next book.
Thank you Karen. Good parenting requires so much from us. We have to always think about what’s good for our kids, not just their physical safety and their formal education, but also their psychological health. I believe a healthy sense of self is the most important thing we can give them or help them find. I’m right with you with my 13-year-old son. All the best in figuring it out. We’ll keep thinking about it and will figure it out. Best