Navigating the time we wish we didn’t have to — My dad died a year ago last month. In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago, in others it is as though it happened last week. It feels like the phone could ring tomorrow with the same news and I would nod my head and say “Oh yes, I…

Hey girl hey — January 1st Hey you! We noticed you let your membership lapse during the ‘Rona! It’s cool, we get it! (although we did offer free workout videos during that time, did you get them?!). We are just checking in to say we would love to have you back sometime! Anytime you…

Is this thing on? — I really don’t like writing these it turns out, this is my third attempt! Awkward introvert comfortable with oversharing *indirectly* oh sure, sign me up. But a full-on introduction is my idea of hell. You’re judging me already aren’t you? Anyway, hi, I’m Steff. What even is this picture? It’s…

Confessions of a crush-a-holic — I can’t remember a time in life when I haven’t had romantic crushes. Little girls grow up with Disney — the “perfect” ideal of romance is fed to us from a young age. Like many girls I had crushes on various actors and musicians growing up. I believed that every…

Is anyone else experiencing this? — It is my understanding that the way Medium measures and pays reads is undergoing some not insignificant changes. I know this is affecting different writers in different ways. I have only written one article this month, so I am hardly expecting to be raking it in. But usually, with the…

Is it a lazy summer slump in my brain or something else? — I’m stuck. I can’t seem to write anything lately, for a few weeks anyway. Editing old drafts leads nowhere. I decide I can never publish them or hate them and sometimes delete them and regret it. Memoir writer problems am I right. New ideas are flimsy. I feel unmotivated. Maybe…

My teen idol was a beautiful, bald, fiery lass from Ireland — “I remember it, Dublin in a rainstorm. Sitting in the long grass in summer. Keeping warm. I remember it. Every restless night. We were so young then we thought that everything we could possibly do was right” -Sinéad O’Connor, “Troy”* I remember the first time I heard “Troy”. I was…

Is taking a back seat to editors’ opinions always the best way forward? — A funny thing happened today. I received a boost on a self-published article. That makes two (self-published) boosts now. I genuinely thought my first self-published boost was a fluke, unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. A self-published boost goes against a lot of the advice and buzz around Medium on…

On complicated ancestry, adoption, grief, and confused instincts — When my dad died last summer, there was one thing that happened that excited me a little bit while going through his things. We found his birth certificate, which I had never seen before. …