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Air Pollution Hotspots Around the World
Air pollution continues to kill people around the world.
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Donora’s Legacy Still Felt Today
How has the Donora smog tragedy affected the way we live today?
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Secrets of Donora’s Forgotten Cemetery
We tred carefully through the brambles, weeds, and bushes devouring a hillside cemetery in the north end of Donora, Pa. We step from one small monument to another, making our way as close as we can, without a machete, to the largest monument, the one marking the grave of Capt. John Gilmore. Gilmore was a…
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I Have a Publisher!
I am delighted and honored to join this prestigious university press. Now, to write the book!
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I Have an Agent!
I am thrilled to announce that I have signed with Bookends Literary Agency for Silver Lining: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town.
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Answering Proust’s Questionnaire
The questions here are from the second questionnaire he developed, the one when he was 20. I thought it might be a fun exercise.
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Why I Write
I have been writing now — officially, professionally, occasionally happily — for 35 years, and I don’t believe I have ever, until now, committed to paper exactly why. So, let’s have at it. I write to…
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Staying Calm in the Face of Trumpism
Just a few days later I was presented, apparently by cosmic fate, two items that have given me a new perspective on how Facebook and other social media have helped to make compromise nearly impossible and how I, in turn, could make my role in protesting obscene policies more effective, rational, and humane.
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2018 Oscars Fashion by Someone Who Knows Almost Nothing About Fashion
I know virtually nothing except that I can identify a wide variety of women’s shoes. (Slingbacks, kitten heels, open-toed pumps — don’t even get me started.) We dutifully watched the 90th Oscars last night, and I give you now my best-ofs in my own categories.
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Gone Was the Wind
If even a slight breeze had strolled through the Donora valley that week the smoke would have broken up, giving residents some respite. But no, there was no breeze to be had, not in Donora, nor in Monessen to the south, nor in Monongahela to the north.
