Tag: Boston University
The Literary Legacy of C. Michael Curtis
A few years ago, the novelist and short-story writer Lauren Groff reflected on what had launched one of the more sparkling literary careers of recent years:
When C. Michael Curtis pulled my short story “L. DeBard and Aliette” from the slush pile in 2005, I was in my first semester in graduate school at Madison. In the years since I’d graduated from college, I’d been a bartender and administrative assistant and had worked my brain and fingers raw, trying and
The Problem With Mothers and Daughters
The evening before my mother slipped into the fugue state she was in until she died, I said goodnight with my usual “I love you, Mom.” “But do you?” she murmured. “Of course I do,” I said, automatically. And that was that, her one invitation to have that conversation, declined.
But what should I have said? “I admire you”? It was true. “It’s complicated”? Also true. A lot of things were true. There was love, anger, guilt, regret. How
Community Input Caused the Housing Crisis
Development projects in the United States are subject to a process I like to call “whoever yells the loudest and longest wins.” Some refer to this as participatory democracy.
Across the country, angry residents and neighborhood associations have the power to delay, reshape, and even halt entirely the construction of vital infrastructure. To put a fine point on it: Deference to community input is a big part of why the U.S. is suffering from a nearly 3.8-million-home shortage and has
Most Pregnant Women Haven’t Gotten the COVID-19 Vaccine
Across the U.S., vaccination numbers have been slowly climbing, protecting more and more of the population and bringing the country closer to getting the coronavirus under control. But despite this success, some high-risk groups have lagged behind. In particular, rates among pregnant people are discouragingly low.
Although more than three-quarters of all eligible adults have gotten at least one COVID-19 shot, only about 25 percent of mothers-to-be have gotten one during their pregnancy. Rates are even lower for Latina and