Author: Jeannine Ouellette

It’s the world’s largest freshwater port. But when the steel, timber, and frozen pizza industries go to hell, the city is screwed. Or maybe not. How did our favorite northern town go from being “the state’s largest white ghetto” to being its most popular destination? It’s all about converting to the post-industrial future that awaits…

I suppose I’d be a better writer if I could hold my liquor. After all, plenty of U.S. winners of the Nobel Prize for literature—from Sinclair Lewis to William Faulkner to Eugene O’Neill to Ernest Hemingway—were friendly with the bottle. Liquor as a literary lubricant dates back to the authors of the U.S. Constitution. According…

Once, when my daughter Sophie was about two years old, I dragged her to a big, noisy birthday party at Circus Pizza, where she had been on only one previous occasion. That, too, was for a big, noisy birthday party about a year and a half before. When we arrived at the second party, Sophie…

If Christmas marks the birth of Jesus, then you know who deserves most of the credit. As interest in Mary increases among the unwashed masses, the Church has more trouble trying to manage her image, her meaning, and her legacy. Anne and Joe were a typical couple. They married young and drove hard for success,…

For starters, let’s say that I’m not going to write about the election or the war. You and I have both been around the block enough to recognize that I am no Bill Hillsman, and nothing I say is going to change your mind on these matters. This is because you are a stubborn creature…

It’s not as if I wasn’t expecting it. With tall genes scattered on both sides of the family, my kids were bound to surpass my (almost) 5’3” status eventually. But still it gave me a jolt to see my daughter Sophie’s shoulder edge above mine by a good inch when she sidled up to me…