Here’s a new way to start. — 30 years ago, someone “important” told me I couldn’t draw. My mistake? I believed him. I was fresh out of college, and I wanted a job making maps and graphics for newspapers. I interviewed for an internship at a major news organization in New York City. Despite my Journalism degree…

Days and months are tinged with color when you have this kind of Synesthesia — I have always loved calendars. When I was a child, I couldn’t wait to get to sixth grade. I knew that every month, the teacher, Mrs. Pollack, would assign homework to draw a calendar that combined math problems with art. So every month, I would get to draw a calendar and decorate it with colors…

Bringing my Nana’s 1940s tale to life with little drawings — Myrtle, my nana, raised seven daughters on Cape Cod in the 1940s. With my grandfather she ran the Hotel Englewood, a fixture on the south Cape through the 1960s. She loved books and recorded stories on cassette recorders from her “command station” overlooking Lewis Bay. At some point, she wrote…

Could lack of an inner voice mean there’s more room for thinking? — Earlier this year, Ryan Langdon published this article about discovering that not everyone has an internal monologue. It’s a great read with quotes from people who were just as shocked as I was to find out that there is such a thing as an internal monologue. My sister had seen…

Because your letter B is not the same color as mine. — If you also “see” letters or numbers as colors, then you have what’s called grapheme-color synesthesia. I recently launched a project called “What Color is Your Name?” at Synesthesia.me. It features an interactive tool that shows how your name looks to me, someone with a particular kind of Synesthesia, and…

It might, depending on the Synesthesia colors of your name. — I recently wrote an article here on Medium describing how my grapheme-color synesthesia defines the colors of letters and numbers, and ultimately, people’s names. One of the most common questions I get as someone with this form of synesthesia is “What color is my name?” The very next question is…

From Brooklyn to Zoey, here are 20 gorgeous names to consider. — Good Housekeeping recently released the top 100 baby girl names and trends to watch for in 2020. Coincidentally, I just released a Synesthesia project that answers the question, “What color is your name?” Put them together and you get a list of the most beautiful baby names for girls, according…

From Colton to Theodore, here are 20 rich, bold names to consider for your little boy. — Good Housekeeping recently released the most popular 100 baby boy names and trends to watch for in 2020. Coincidentally, I just released a Synesthesia project that answers the question, “What color is your name?” Put them together and you get a list of the most handsome baby names for…

Twenty years ago at a New York City tabloid, there was no way to explain that words have colors. — When I started my career back in the ’90s, my job — designing pages for newspapers — involved creating interesting arrangements of pictures and words that would hook readers. At the New York Daily News, I worked on the News desk with a team of 12 men responsible for designing…