I'm a writer living in the Washington, DC, area. My work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies including The Gettysburg Review, Gargoyle, Writes of Passage: Coming of Age Stories and Memoirs from The Hudson Review, in The Washington Post, and on NPR's "All Things Considered."

For more information, please see the Bio page.

You can follow me on Twitter:
@​paulawhyman.








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"Mom takes a long time putting on her powders."

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Selected Works

Fiction

A young woman struggles with an unplanned pregnancy.

Sexual and racial tensions in a classroom threaten to explode as a young teen faces choices that will haunt her in adulthood. ORDER HERE

A young girl in Thailand is sold into prostitution by her mother.

A woman is haunted by events from the past that threaten to disturb her domestic life.

A man battles neighbors to build his dream house, while his son resists the pull of the family heritage.

A psychologist confuses fantasy and reality as she travels alone for the first time after her divorce.
Humor
Dining out with dietary issues, and Twizzlers. From the Washington Post.

KITCHEN SINK LINKS

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CURIOSITIES: THE BLOG

Hanging Out With "Questionable Folks": Christine O'Donnell, Witchy Woman

September 20, 2010

Tags: politics, language, random curiosities

In 1999, Christine O'Donnell said: "I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven. I hung around people who were doing these things."

And: "One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's a little blood there and stuff like that."

She told a meeting in Delaware yesterday: "How many of you didn't hang out with questionable folks in high school?"

Oh, okay, it was high school! Silly me. But, when I can get past the poor grammar ("dabbled INTO"??), I listen to what she's saying here. And I want to make sure I understand.

We're just talking about "a little blood." Right? So, when she says "a little blood," we're not talking, a bucket of pig's blood dumped on her rival followed by the violent electrocution of the entire Senior Prom Court, along with that really mean teacher. That's not what we're talking about, right?

Because, you know, I wasn't there. And, so much is left to interpretation. Maybe I'm unusual, because the "questionable folks" I hung out with [shout out to Facebook!], well, I can't remember attending any Satanic rituals with them. Four-wheeling, yes. Drinking peach schnapps in the woods during exam week breaks, yes. Swimming in the reservoir, and sneaking into...Oh, never mind.

But, visiting Satan's lair where we sacrificed the neighbor's cat that someone "accidentally" ran over?

Nah. Not even once. If that was going on, I completely missed out on it.

After about ten seconds of reflection on Ms. O'Donnell's current, rather stringent "moral" stances set against her past...indiscretions...I can only conclude that her extreme guilt over those Satanic orgies [read: early sex with her boyfriend] has caused her to completely subdue all the normal impulses we associate with human nature.

Fact is, Ms. O'Donnell is still hanging out with "questionable folks." And none of us here are Bewitched.

My advice to her is to, you know, chill. And maybe try out some normal teenage behavior. I may still have some peach schnapps. (I will not be drinking it myself ever again.)

Meanwhile, I'll share this photograph with you that we obtained, a portrait from Ms. O'Donnell's misspent youth. (The gentleman on the left is young Karl Rove.):



Some may say this is not the same person. I mean, it does look like she's enjoying herself there... But the evidence is compelling. And how many of us ARE the same as we were in high school, anyway?