At the end of summer a few years ago, I scoped out an empty spot in my garden to plant the mystery daylily I gleaned from a wooden box at farmers market. A handwritten sign on a popsicle stick above the dug-up leftovers invited passers-by to “Take one, or not.” I took one, soil still…

When the heroine of my forthcoming novel, Candlewood, moves to New York City in 1979 to reinvent herself, she stays at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. Although she arrives there through a series of mishaps, she finds herself at the iconic address that launched many a dreamer. Paulina Bren, recent author of The Barbizon: The Hotel That…

What’s a cathedral to do when its beloved tabby climbs the Tree of Life for the last time? Give it a fine sendoff, of course. London’s Southwark Cathedral did just that for their feline friend who mewed among its pews for the last dozen years. Thousands who had come to know the stray, dubbed Doorkins…