“By the numbers, Accomack could look like a desolate place to live. The Opportunity Index, a nonprofit measurement of sixteen different indicators of success in every county in America, gives it a forty-three out of one hundred. But numbers can… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
People throughout time have grieved, have fallen in love, have fallen out of love. We are sometimes petty and sometimes heroic, and we have… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
“How do you calculate fish fries in the backyard, kiddie pools in the front yard, and unfettered views of a thousand starts in the night sky? So much of life is intangible, and places don't feel like they're disappearing to the people who are living there. I went to Accomack County and I found endless metaphors for a dying county… — Monica Hesse Copy Share
“Lucky has become such a relative term, when the standards to meet it involve only not being treated like a criminal in your own… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
“But maybe rural America isn't dying so much as it's Shucker-ing: adjusting, adapting, becoming something new, getting a new outdoor sign and adding jalapeno… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
I hope people will never stop dressing up as Harry Potter. It feels less to me like something you wear because you think it's… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
Fiction writing and journalism, in my experience, are really excellent training grounds for each other. — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
Like a lot of people, I read 'The Diary of Anne Frank' again and again and again when I was growing up - I'm… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
By the end of his life, one has a far easier time picturing Hugh Hefner buying his girlfriend a comfy pair of slippers than… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
Cooking is a weird thing. In homes, I'd wager it's still women who do more of the cooking. — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
“Jeff Beall. Beall was a tall man with a bristling mustache and a wit as dry as sandpaper. He’d drive thirty miles to loan… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
In fiction, you learn about pacing and how to build tension - which is something you want in a really good nonfiction feature article… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
“As economies change, as landscapes change, nostalgia is the only good America will never stop producing. We gorge on it ourselves and pass it… — Monica Hesse Copy Share Image
