by Michelle Tocher | Feb 12, 2021
In Metamorphosis, the Roman poet Ovid tells a story about a man named Erysichthon whose exploitive behavior leads to a harrowing end. At the same time, he has a daughter who offers a very different way of thinking about humanity’s relationship with the natural...
by Michelle Tocher | Aug 24, 2020
No story has gripped me more than the real-life “sleeping beauty” story that Oliver Sacks tells in his magnificent book, Awakenings. For years I have been fascinated by the symmetry between his experience of patients with encephalitis lethargica and the...
by Michelle Tocher | May 4, 2020
Over the years, I have been fascinated by Richard Kennedy’s modern fairy tale, The Dark Princess. It’s a story about a princess whose light is so bright that she blinds anyone who looks at her directly. She is utterly alone in the world until she meets a...
by Michelle Tocher | Feb 5, 2020
You dreamt of failing in a finishing school. You were never going to succeed at becoming a Lady. You submitted yourself to endless lessons in etiquette. You allowed every natural instinct to be critiqued, and eventually all the humiliations and tiny tortures silenced...
by Michelle Tocher | Dec 9, 2019
I had a dream the other night that I had written something important using a fountain pen. I was staying in a hotel and I came out of the room carrying my writings in a sheaf of loose papers. I got on the elevator with a couple who were wearing white robes. Each of...
