& How Many Sleepless Nights —

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

The first time I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, I was pregnant with my first child, depressed as hell, and only a matter of months away from completing my MFA. By my standards, I came into the book late, having read most of “the classics” by the time I graduated from high school. But looking back, what I read into that book and what I’ve carried with me has been far more vital than anything I took from Dickens or Twain — most…