My Granddaddy was a practical man.

The right word can heal. The wrong one can destroy.

My book’s cover features a quote by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu: ``Forgiveness is not for sissies.’’

Julie Duffy, founding director of a Denver shelter for women and transgender individuals, has walked alongside so many women, supporting them as they lived their truths.

Years after my mother’s death, I was sitting with the daughter of a friend who had just died and remembering:  A house of loss is a hungry house.

The late South African artist David Koloane once told me: "Being born in South Africa, I know no other country. And I don't think I can love any other country as much as I love the country where I was born and where my ancestors were born."

He expressed that love by looking closely and with great empathy, then translating what he saw onto canvas. 

The truth is, we need fiction.