Susie Bright Heather Chaplin Joe Conason Christopher Hitchens David Horowitz Garrison Keillor Anne Lamott Joyce Millman Camille Paglia James Poniewozik Scott Rosenberg Polly Shulman Charles Taylor Sallie Tisdale + To top

S E C O N D  T H O U G H T S - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sallie Tisdale's column appears every other Thursday Sallie Tisdale is a contributing editor of Harper's and the author of "Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex," among other books. She is a staunch defender of the essay form, and her own work is the varied diet of the generalist. She is an autodidact rather than a scholar, a gregarious hermit who is fond of small rooms with closed doors but remains capable of dancing badly at parties. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and in a number of unexpected languages, and she has occasionally been given money for it. She holds many strong opinions, none of which are likely to remain unchanged for long, and can occasionally be found exhorting writing students of various ages to loosen up and stop apologizing. + Get the current Second Thoughts column + Browse the Second Thoughts archive Bookmark http://www.salonmagazine.com/col/tisd/