The beauty of a well-loved notebook — I was a terrible notetaker in school. All through high school, college, and law school, I barely took any notes. For the most part, I didn’t need them. I was able to regurgitate the critical material simply by doing the reading and attending most of the lectures. When I practiced…

The power of found things — A few days ago, I found a discarded grocery list. The moment I picked it up, ideas started exploding inside my skull. Below you will find a haiku comic, a free verse poem, a collage in my notebook, and a short essay, all inspired by this list.

Welcome back, Perseid meteor shower — Summer ends only when the stars fall. In the McBride house, the last great event of summer is the Perseid meteor shower. This night-time spectacular comes every August. …

How to take responsible risks — The problem with death-defying circus acts is that sometimes they don’t defy death. It used to be that high-wire walkers and trapeze artists always performed with a net. It was crazy not to. No matter how skilled you are, bad things can happen — often things outside of your control…

The magic of endings — This is the last week of unadulterated summer for our family. Next week, the kids start getting lockers and schedules. School doesn’t start until the week of Labor Day here, but after this week, we have to start preparing. August is always bittersweet. Poetry was made for endings. It’s the…

The best writing happens when you leave the house — Looking for an escape from the news in 2016, I rediscovered my childhood fascination with writing haiku. What began as a lark, turned into an obsession that not only changed the way I write but also changed the way I live. It all started at one of my children’s elementary…

The most hated form of modern communication (except for everything else) — You hate email. You receive far too many emails each day. You hate email so much that you only look at the average email for nine seconds before moving on to something else. You also love to complain about how many emails you receive. If you’re a millennial and you’re…

The purpose of art isn’t to be good at it — One fun thing about being a dad to four kids is watching how the older ones react when they see their younger siblings say or do something that will trigger a response from me. A few months ago, our youngest, T, made a comment about how other people were doing…

For anyone as confused as I am about what it means to be an adult — The following 21 haiku comics are for anyone who is entering the interstitial corridor between pre-adulting and post-adulting. You might be 18, you might be 58 — age doesn’t really matter here. Looking back at my life, I’m confident that nobody should ever ask me for advice. …