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Washington Post
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Carolyn Hax: Husband taken aback by wife's ‘raunchy' novel based on her past
Dear Carolyn: My wife, 'Lisa,' and I have been happily married for 30 years, raised three great children and look forward to a very comfortable retirement. I couldn't have asked for a better wife and partner. Over the years, besides her day job, Lisa has made many forays into creative writing and has been pretty successful. She's published articles and several short stories. Her blog is popular, so she decided to attempt the novel she's always talked about. She told me I could read it anytime, and now that it's in the hands of her agent, I did. The novel is about a 'wild child' of the late 1980s, and I immediately knew Lisa had based it loosely upon herself. It is very entertaining but quite raunchy, so I mentioned that she must have embellished quite a lot — but she said no, she left a lot out. I am stunned. Lisa told me when we were dating that she had a 'misspent youth,' and I knew she had a lot more partners than I did, but I never imagined anything like this. I have two problems now: First, her past is bothering me, and I know that's stupid after all these years. Second, she's completely unconcerned that our friends, relatives and, worst of all, our kids might figure out this isn't exactly a work of fiction. How am I to deal with this without coming right out and forbidding her to publish this nonsense? — Stunned Stunned: Whoa. I was nodding along with you there — it'll be 'gently amused sympathy' in my fictionalized memoir — till 'forbidding' and 'nonsense.' Then you lost me faster than a wild child's impulse control. The two most efficient ways to detonate your snow-globe marriage are to control your beloved wife and talk down to her. So, no to those offensive blunt instruments. Plus, why use them when there are simple, obvious, low-drama options that target your specific concerns respectfully? For your fear of everyone's discovery, simply talk to your wife again. Ask whether she ever intends to reveal publicly what she told you. A calm ask, not an aggressive one. She may have no intention of deviating from the line that her book is fiction, even if, say, her kid asks her point-blank. If she hadn't thought this far, then suggest she ask authors who've been there? A calm suggestion, not an aggressive one. If she responds that she has nothing to be ashamed of or hide — then, ideally, you would agree that's both a fair point and her prerogative. But if you don't, then better to say, 'I need time to clear my mind' — calmly — than to try aggressively to change hers. You may have noted a theme. Pushing your distress onto her will only make things worse. I say this even though I don't agree it's 'stupid' for you to feel bothered. I mean, it's not smart or useful, let's not get carried away — but not everyone is ready to read their spouse's youthful sex diaries, so I think you can let yourself feel normal for flinching. Then forgive yourself. Then decide the bad feelings are too stupid to risk dwelling on at the expense of everything you've built. Because remember, your wife's entire past — not just the parts you're okay with — made her into the person you love and trust. So discuss your wife's plans with the book, yes. But it's not her job to make you feel better about her life before she met you. A few solo therapy sessions might help you — since I assume you won't run this by friends.
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- The Guardian
The prison classroom was where she could finally be herself. Now it's gone
Every Monday for over a decade, I left my home on Peaks Island, Maine, boarded a ferry to town then drove inland to the Maine correctional center to lead a creative writing class for incarcerated women. After a 30-minute drive, I park my car, walk to the facility, leave my cellphone and keys with the front desk guard, walk through a metal detector and several sets of sliding doors until I reach the women's unit. My classroom is a tiny space, bare bones, with plastic chairs, cinderblock walls and fluorescent lights. I teach to a rotating cast. Many are in for drug-related crimes and leave after a few months. Others, like the lifers, are always there. After all these years, we're more like siblings than co-workers. We see one another. My students write about addiction and hope, survival and abuse. They write about their childhoods and their children. The write about the foods they miss, the sex they still want. They write to remember themselves, to reclaim their identities as human beings rather than rap sheets. Months ago, I had a new student, a transgender woman. Ashley was tall, meticulous with her makeup, and unreasonably punctual. One Monday, I passed by a jazzercise class on my way in and spotted her through the glass: pigtailed, beaming, sweat-drenched, dancing with abandon. A towel slung over one shoulder, she darted to class right after. After a few weeks in the classroom, I gained her trust and, one day in class she shared with me: 'I used to look in the mirror and ask, 'Who are you?' Now I look and say, 'There you are.'' She told me that, ironically, the women's prison was the first place she felt like herself. Ashley had been welcomed as she was by the other incarcerated women, and with open arms. 'They're teaching me how to be a woman,' she said. This isn't a procedural shift you'd find in a sentencing report, but a deep, internal, transformational, emotional, psychological, even existential one. It's the kind of change rooted in healing, in feeling safe, and in finally being seen by others as who you truly are. That kind of safety is rare inside prison walls, and it's exactly what just got taken away: this April, the federal government revoked more than $1.4m in grant funding from Maine's department of corrections. The reason? The state had housed a trans woman in a women's facility, following medical recommendations and the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act. The woman, Andrea Balcer, had been living in constant fear in a men's prison. She, too, said that in the women's unit, she finally felt seen and safe. The Trump administration's Department of Justice didn't see it that way. Under the attorney general, Pam Bondi, they declared Maine out of compliance with 'agency priorities'. The punishment: cut funding, and not just any funding, but programs that worked. Programs that healed and transformed lives. Gone: a substance use treatment initiative serving more than 300 incarcerated people, that was vital in a state affected by high rates of opioid addiction. Gone: a re-entry program designed to reduce recidivism through community-based support. Gone: the Lullaby Project, through which professional musicians helped incarcerated mothers write songs for their children. None of these were symbolic programs, they were lifelines. Other states are watching. Some will fall in line, but few can afford to risk losing the funding that props up their already hollow systems. But Maine didn't bend, and that matters. When the state refused to move Shelley back to a men's facility, the federal government retaliated – not against policymakers, but against mothers, recovering addicts, probationers, artists. The ones with the least to lose, and who keep losing anyway. I, too, have been cut from teaching at the prison. Most of us volunteers have been suspended: a Bible studies teacher of 23 years, a prison hospice coordinator, the list goes on. After over a decade of volunteer work, I was suspended from facilitating creative writing workshops, my badge revoked, my relationships severed because I advocated for my students. I wasn't suspended because of budget cuts. I was suspended because I spoke up. Because I asked too many questions, pushed for dignity, and treated incarcerated women like their lives mattered. My classroom is now gone. My volunteer badge won't get me past security any more. And I have no way of reaching my students, including Ashley, any more. Any snail mail I send comes right back to me with a stamp reading: 'Return to sender: non-allowable inside.' But I can still write this. I believe that prison should be a place of rehabilitation rather than regression and retribution. I still believe in what we were building in that cinderblock room. That writing is a form of repair. That dignity doesn't end at the prison gate. That women like Ashley and Shelley and any other woman deserve to see themselves reflected, not just in mirrors, but in policy, in possibility. The last time I saw Ashley, I was walking to my classroom. She was finishing jazzercise, tall and joyous and glowing with sweat. We saw each other through the glass wall and waved. Then, I arrived at my classroom, sat down and waited for her to join me at the table. Untitled A poem by Ashley Bushey (with permission to be shared) … We're the blades of grass who withstand the shifting winds with an unyielding stamina that bends, yet never breaks. We're the tumbleweeds that follow the winds, looking for the perfect note we seek. We're the waves of the oceans, carried away to new lands whose speed, size and strength are constantly taxed by brewing storm and rising tide. Only to be washed ashore. Not finished. Fresh and new to begin again. Only to find that all lessons are lost, because, as we changed, so did everything else. We're the bottle with the message. When finally opened there is only a blank page and a pen. Then we realize, of course it's blank. How can we write what is undreamt? We're the solution. We're the anomaly. We become one. Mira Ptacin is the author of The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna and the memoir Poor Your Soul. She lives in Maine.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Teacher Covers Herself in Peanut Butter and Jelly to Teach Her Class an Important Lesson in Viral Video
Teacher Kayleigh Sloan, 28, has gone viral after filming herself giving students an important lesson about creative writing She asked the kids to write instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and followed them exactly Sloan ended up covering herself in peanut butter and jelly before telling the students how important it is to add description to their writingA teacher in Idaho is teaching her kids an important, albeit messy, lesson about creative writing. In a recent TikTok clip, Kayleigh Sloan, 28, who is a first and second grade looping teacher, filmed herself teaching her class the importance of accuracy when describing how to make a classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich., Sloan began the clip, which has now been watched 54.5 million times, by telling the kids, 'I'm going to read some of your responses on how to make a PB&J, and then I am going to copy exactly what your writing says." 'So, the first one says, 'You get bread, you get peanut butter and you get jelly,' ' Sloan said, holding all the items in her arms, asking, 'Did I make it?' as the kids insisted, "No!" 'That's what it said to do,' Sloan replied. 'I got my bread, I got my peanut butter and I got my jelly — so it's done.' 'That's not how you make it!' one student yelled out, as Sloan moved on to another student's suggestion. 'Put the bread flat,' Sloan told the class, pressing firmly on the bread. 'Alright, it's pretty flat. I feel like that's good.' 'Spread jelly and jam on the bread,' she read aloud, spreading the jelly on one side and peanut butter on the other, while the bread was still in the plastic. 'Like this?' Sloan questioned, adding, 'Is it ready to eat?' much to the students' disgust. One kid insisted, 'That's not how you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!' 'That's what it said to do!' Sloan responded before moving on to another student's list. 'You need to get out the — Ooooh! Get out the bread. First, I get out the bread,' Sloan said, grabbing a piece of bread. 'Get out some jelly. Perfect!' she continued, throwing the item on the table, before following it up with some peanut butter. 'Okay, it's ready,' Sloan told the kids, insisting, 'That's what it said to do.' Things then got even messier, as she told the students, 'Let's try another one: First, you must put on the jelly. Then, you must put on peanut butter," asking, 'Wait — I need to put it on? What?' Sloan proceeded to rub the peanut butter and jelly all over her arms, as the students screamed. 'You're doing it wrong!' one kid said, as Sloan questioned, 'Okay, it's on — am I done?' The class yelled "No!" as the teacher pointed out, 'But you told me to put it on. Like a T-shirt?' She then explained the importance of the lesson she was trying to teach, telling the kids, 'So, we just did a whole lesson on adding detail to our writing. Do we understand why you have to have detail? Did anybody ever mention a plate or a knife?' asking, 'Did we even use these?' while holding them up. 'All I did was exactly what you told me to do," Sloan continued to tell the class. "So, do we see how important it is to include all the correct steps? ... So, if we were to redo this, what could our first step be?' before they yelled out suggestions on how to be more descriptive to make sure the sandwich got made correctly. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Sloan told that the kids "were mind-blown" following the class, adding to the outlet that she'd seen the peanut butter and jelly sandwich experiment on TikTok five years ago. She told the publication she now teaches the "hilarious" lesson every year. "The point of the lesson is to add detail and be descriptive in writing,' Sloan said. 'Words are so important and can easily change the meaning of what we're saying. That's why I was so literal with the instructions.' Sloan didn't immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for comment on the viral clip. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Students are in fine verse as they enjoy a taste of cafe culture to get creative
Students are in fine verse as they enjoy a taste of cafe culture to get creative Students at The Sixth Form Bolton were in fine verse when they composed their own poems to recite. The town centre sixth form held its first poetry slam event which gave students the opportunity to perform their own poetry in front of an audience and an panel of judges. Students performed a poem of their choice that they were proud of. (Image: The Sixth Form Bolton) SHAKQUILLE In the second round, contestants were given prompt words to inspire their writing, including college, student life, growing up, and next steps. READ MORE: A place at a leading university awaits a student of The Sixth Form Bolton ADVERTISEMENT A-LEVEL RESULTS DAY 2020: Top grades equal university place for The Sixth Form Bolton students WATCH: Ribbon-cutting ceremony opens The Sixth Form Bolton's new extension (Image: The Sixth Form Bolton) Samay Joshi The judging panel featured several well-known poets, including Noor_ia, Romina from Natter, Bolton, and former staff member Andy Howard. Members of the alumni also attended, with Amber Berry and Carys Bustard both performing deeply emotive pieces. The competition was described as fierce, and students Jaweriya Chisti, Hannah Cordwell, Isaac Cradden, Samay Joshi, and Tianna Mkandawire each delivered powerful, emotionally resonant poems. After much deliberation, the judges awarded third place to Samay, second place to Isaac, and crowned Tianna as the overall winner. ADVERTISEMENT Mark Goodwin, Assistant Principal of student experience, said:'It was an absolute pleasure to attend the recent Poetry Slam. (Image: The Sixth Form Bolton) SAMAY, ISAAC, JAWERIYA WITH JAVAN "The café-style atmosphere created a relaxed environment in which contestants and guests impressed us with their professional delivery. The audience was certainly given food for thought thanks to a range of insightful poems. Thanks to all involved.' Javan Dawson, Progress Coach and The Sixth Form Rich Coordinator who organised the event, added: 'The first-ever B6 Poetry Slam was absolutely brilliant. Once again, our students showcased incredible talent for spoken word and produced heartfelt, powerful poems. "Congratulations to our Slam Winner, Tianna, and a special thank you to our guest judges Shakquille Millington, Noor Iman, Andrew Howard, and Romina Ramos. Look out for the podcast of this event coming soon to Spotify.' The podcast featuring all of the poems will be released soon.
