Note: I originally wrote this essay on March 19, 2020, the same day that Pennsylvania’s non-essential businesses were forced to close because of the growing threat of COVID-19. One year later, I thought it was appropriate to publish this piece here. …

As the executive director of a regional community development organization, I often have the privilege of hearing Beaver County residents dream about the future. …

I have always loved the snow. I can recognize how that might be an unpopular opinion at present, given the events of recent weeks in Beaver County and around the country. So, let me get this out of the way at the outset and say that I realize that winter…

Seven years ago this week, my son died. His name was (and is) Solomon James Jeffrey Rossi-Keen. His birthday and his day of death are one and the same given that he was stillborn in the waning days of a perfectly normal and nearly full-term pregnancy. The details are many…

Toward the end of last year, I spent more time in doctor’s offices than I care to remember. It started with a case of shingles that paralyzed half of my face. Thankfully, over two months later, I have recovered about three quarters of the movement in my face, and I…

(NOTE: this is a piece I originally published back in 2016. I am no longer “available for hire,” and am posting this here to start conversation and potentially help others to think a bit differently about their current situation. Enjoy!) ===== Several years ago my dad told me a story…

Every once in a while, as a writer, I discipline myself to write without a plan. To do this, I will provide myself with a prompt and then begin writing to see where responding to the prompt takes me. I tend to do this kind of writing when I have…

During the last several installments of this column, I have spent considerable time making a number of rather abstract and theoretical claims about community life. …

In the last installment of this column I wrote about the consequences of political division. Along the way, I made a number of claims about how politics is straining our ability to live in community with others. I suggested that, as a nation, we are losing our capacity to communicate…