I wrote a piece about traveling with my son to Sudan. I was hoping it would be like the trip I took with his sister when she was younger, but it turned out quite differently. The essay was published by Your Teen Magazine, a publication for parents of teenagers. Bonding With My Son In Africa?…
Some thoughts on winning Newton Has Talent 2018 (adult division) last night with my pal Emily Prenner: Didn’t fit in the night deposit box at the bank 1. It was fun! It’s great to play music with people and especially when you’re clicking on the same wavelength. We had conversations that went: -Let’s audition with Carole…
Sometimes I write essays and sometimes they get published. Sometimes they don’t and they sit in my hard drive until I share them with you here. Here’s one that seemed like a great premise a year or more ago but seems a tad optimistic today (and the references are getting stale). I still like it…
I wrote about playing music with the Newton Family Singers band last month. If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared in my monthly email newsletter. If you subscribe, you can get more writings like this delivered straight to your inbox and not miss a thing. Sign…
This year we celebrated Hannukah (spell check tells me I’m doing it wrong, but this is how it was spelled when I was growing up and I have a hard time breaking the habit. The “chabit”?) If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared…
Cognoscenti has published my latest essay: The Patriots’ Superficial Secret Weapon The New England Patriots are going to the Super Bowl! Again! For the third time in four years! For the eighth time in 17 years! Perhaps you’ve heard about this development? Sports writers, pundits, the mailman, your dog walker — it feels like everyone…
Relentlessly helpful! On their #amwriting podcast, KJ Dell’antonia and Jessica Lahey urge people to be “relentlessly helpful.” That’s the way to get people to share your posts, forward your email newsletters (hint hint) and gain new readers. If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared in my…
Of course they caved. With a shutdown of the government looming, Democrats insisted that they needed a resolution for DACA and funding for CHIP. The first would settle the immigration status of children who arrived illegally into the US and the second would cover health insurance for millions of low income children. The Republicans offered…
Part of the fun of NFS is developing a repertoire of songs that everyone in my family knows. When I was a kid, my sisters and I knew all songs from The Sound of Music because we saw that movie on television every year. With NFS, our kids are singing along weekly to Johnny Cash, or Paul…
For the past 7 years, I’ve been playing guitar and other instruments in the band for the Newton Family Singers. How did I join a band in my forties?! If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared in my monthly email newsletter months ago. If…
If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared in my monthly email newsletter in August. If you subscribe, you can get more writings like this delivered straight to your inbox and not miss a thing. Sign up here. A month or so ago, I watched…
Acclaimed author and thinker visits the Boston Clemente Course If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared in my monthly email newsletter in August. If you subscribe, you can get more writings like this delivered straight to your inbox and not miss a thing. Sign…
How are you? We’re fine here, although it’s been a sad week, with the news of three deaths, one a generation older, one around my age, and one a generation younger. None of them were family, but all were intertwined in the community of my family. I’m going to be intentionally vague about their identities and my…
I’ll cut to the chase: the Speakeasy production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is excellent, worth your time, your money, your attention. The book the play is based on tells the story through the narrator Christopher Boone, a 15 year-old boy on the Autism spectrum. He’s verbal and good at…
The Boston Globe just published my essay about tennis in their Connections column. If the timing of this seems crazily off, it’s because the contents of this post (and more!) first appeared in my monthly email newsletter in August. If you subscribe, you can get more writings like this delivered straight to your inbox and not miss…
Jack Cheng, PhD 