Tania Runyan

Since spinning yarns into a portable tape recorder on lazy summer days, I’ve been fascinated by the heart-stopping possibilities of words. I’ve earned two degrees in writing and another in education, devoting myself to writing, editing, and teaching others how to craft their tales.  For over twenty years, I’ve taught English, written and edited for educational publishers, conducted workshops, and consulted as a private college application coach who helps students perfect their own success stories to capture the schools of their dreams. Now I’m helping customers tell theirs through engaging web copy, landing pages, blog posts, press releases, interviews, and articles.  I’m an author of nine books, regular writer for a number of print and online publications, and winner of a Literary Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Yep, I’m in for writing’s long and lovely haul. I’d love to have you along.

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Air Wrapped in Light: The Hummingbirds’ Gift, by Sy Montgomery

It’s National Bird Feeding Month, and although I adore the nuthatches and downy woodpeckers that frequent my deck during the winter months, I can’t help but look forward to the ruby-throated hummingbirds returning from Mexico in April. As soon as it’s warm enough, I’ll hang their drink of one-part sugar to four-parts water from the metal crook and await the adorable revving engines of their wings. Hummingbirds are feisty, brave lit
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Have a Happy Chocolate, I Mean Valentine’s, Day From Legible with These 5 Yummy Books

I am a suburban middle-aged mom addicted to chocolate, and I stand by the triteness of this identity. In fact, I couldn’t even get through conducting basic research for this post without heading to the pantry to get a handful of dark chocolate chips. It’s a problem. A sweet, creamy, luxurious, problem. For all my love of the stuff, I hadn’t really understood how or why chocolate became a partner in crime with
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Relax with Legible on Read in the Bathtub Day

I’ve been known to not only read in the bathtub but write, shop, and carry on long text conversations, all whilst under the influence of lavender bath-salted water and bubble jets that drown out the sounds of any and all family discord happening downstairs. I’ve had some close calls, and I don’t just mean dropping a book or device in the water. Just last week, I was clicking some links to puppy products that my sister had sent me in Messenger. Some
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Lives Intertwined: Read These Books for Black History Month on Legible

Should you spend Black History Month celebrating Black accomplishments, lamenting slavery’s legacy, or advocating for racial justice? As I worked on curating titles for Legible’s Black History Month list, I found myself struggling to find the “correct” focus until, at last, I conceded — lightbulb! — that these threads are inextricably intertwined. To unravel one idea is to disentangle the rest of the tapestry along with it,
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Sick of Winter? Embrace It with These Deep-Freeze Books on Legible

The lowest temperature recorded in the United States today was -25 F (-31.7 C) in Peter Sink, Utah. As for Canada, it’s -41 C (-41.8 F) in Mould Bay, Northwest Territories, right now. While my neighborhood currently registers at a balmy 33 F (0.6 C), a half-foot of snow is expected tomorrow night, after which a single-digit chill will most likely follow. February is about as wintry as winter gets, and for those of us in norther
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Vacation in Your Armchair This Winter with These Travel Books on Legible

I love my armchair, the little beige nook in which I’ve written many of these posts for Legible. First of all, it’s placed in a window that looks onto the woods behind our house, providing me with winter views of a frozen lake, frolicking dogs and their shivering owners, and goofy nuthatches hanging upside down from the bird feeder. Secondly, the armchair was once owned by the sister of the guy who played Badger in Breakin
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Read These National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists on Legible

As an author, I find the image of being encircled by book critics to be a little intimidating, like a grown-up Ring Around the Rosie game in which my ratings, sales, and confidence all fall down with just a few sinister keystrokes and judgmental brows. Also, tweed. But the National Book Critics Circle is actually a cool group of people who wear all manner of fabrics, a non-profit collective that “honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism, and litera
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Bamboo Toothbrushes and Aluminum Straws: A Review of How to Live Plastic Free

Several years ago, my family and I attended a screening of A Plastic Ocean (2016) at the One Earth Film Festival at our local community college. In one particularly heart-wrenching scene, scientists dissect a sea bird to reveal an abdomen crammed full of plastic. A disturbingly wide range of colors suggested this bird had encountered a world of plastic throughout its life, not just a random fragment on the beach. Some
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Celebrate MLK Day with Books and a Stevie Wonder Singalong

Sure, I’m partial to books, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the power of other art forms to effect change. In fact, we Americans have Stevie Wonder to thank for playing an . . . instrumental part in making Martin Luther King Day a federal holiday. Profoundly inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. as a young man, multi-genre musical superstar Stevie Wonder helped spearhead a campaign to get MLK Day on the calendar. It wasn’t without
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Punching Clocks and Breaking Lines: Celebrate Poetry at Work Day with Legible

I may work as Legible’s Community Engagement Specialist by day, but at night (or, more realistically, on the occasional weekend retreat far far away from my noisy household), I write poetry. I know: I’m wonderfully sensitive and complex. I’m not the only poet to hold down a steady job. Some slightly more famous examples include Wallace Stevens, an insurance executive, and William Carlos Williams, a pediatrician. Whil
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Buckle Up For It Ends With Us, by Colleen Hoover

I’m not the target audience for a romance novel with a pink flower on the cover, but then again, It Ends With Us is not typical. The fact that the aforementioned pink flower is shattered to bits should be the first sign that something pretty intense is going on behind the cover. The second sign is that people all over BookTok have become sobbing, book-throwing wrecks over this novel. After watching those pink petals flash through my feed for mon
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Surprize Me: Read These 2021 Award Winners on Legible

While I appreciate a participation ribbon as much as the next mediocre-to-poor potato sack racer or library coloring contest entrant, I know that true award winners stand apart from the rest. When it comes to books, the embarrassment of riches known as today’s publishing output can be overwhelming at times. With so many intriguing titles vying for my time, how do I possibly begin to narrow my choices? Sometimes, scrolling indiscriminately th
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Say No to Bad News: The Joys of Indiscriminate Scrolling

Doom scrolling. Don’t pretend you don’t do it. I’m talking about those times when you slide your finger up and down your phone searching out whatever distressing tidbits await your barnacles of anxiety. You probably don’t even intend to look for bad news, but your brain has trained itself to do so. Got an outdoor event planned on a cloudy day? Scroll through the hourly forecast, refresh, repeat, and await the lighting bolt icon. Election night? Fix your eyes on that online map and gird yourself
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Beyond Turkey and Pilgrims: 5 Books to Read about the Native American Experience This Thanksgiving

For elementary school students throughout the land, Thanksgiving season means one thing: dressing up for a school pageant. My parents did it, I did it, and so did my kids. I remember showing up dressed in a drab brown dress and gray shawl instead of the cutesy black-and-white pilgrim outfit the cooler girls wore because my mother insisted it was “more authentic.” I pouted. No gangly, bespectacled
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Gallop, Slither, or Fly Over to Legible and Fetch Susan Orlean’s New Book!

Orchids, libraries, Saturday nights: Susan Orlean has a knack for writing books about my favorite things. Now that her newest, On Animals, has been released, there’s pretty much nothing left, unless she’s got a massive project about cheesecake in the works. As evidenced by my first review for Legible, I’ve got a soft spot for soft spots — that is, those furred, finned, and feathered darlings that make our world more ado
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Not a Throwaway Holiday: Celebrate National Recycling Day with These Legible Reads

One of my favorite childhood memories is collecting cans with my mom at various parks while my dad hobnobbed with his model boat club. As he set his tugboat in the pond, ducks flapping away as “Aquaholic,” or whatever he named it, cut through the water toward her dinghy buddies, my mom and I would pick various Coke and Fresca cans out of the trash, tossing them in huge plastic bags (yep, irony alert). We didn’t v
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Aren’t You a Crafty One! Get Creative with These Holiday Craft Books on Legible

I’m not crafty. Like at all. As an elementary-schooler in the late 70s and early 80s, aka The Diorama Years, I struggled mightily with markers and scissors when all I wanted to do was write a report. Where does the red fern grow? Not in this Stride Rite shoebox, where I’ve managed to glue my fingers together. Even today, a simple roll of wrapping paper and “invisible” tape turns into quite the visible mess as I continually underestimate the length and width of the gift awaiting its festive cove
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Once Upon a Debut: Read These Famous Authors’ First Books on Legible

My husband and I binged The Only Murders in the Building over the past couple of weekends, bolstering our mental health by laughing through all ten episodes. Martin Short in particular made us outright guffaw by simply standing in elevators, falling off chairs, and just, well, breathing, which he’s also been nailing for 71 years. My renewed interest in Short sent me digging up early footage to see how far he’s come. I couldn’
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Snuggle Up Together on Family Literacy Day with These Read-Aloud Books from Legible

Once upon a time (November 1, 1994, specifically) a very special event called Family Literacy Day was born. This magical day would encourage parents and caregivers throughout the land to become involved in their children’s reading, for families who read together promote academic achievement, stronger relationships, and giant beanstalks of fun. Good thing Legible is here, wizard hat on, to make these wonderful re
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There’s a Monster at the End (and the Beginning and Middle) of this Book: Lauren Groff’s The…

When fellow Legible curator Marci Rae Johnson asked me if I wanted to read and review The Monsters of Templeton as a spooky book of the week, I prepared myself for all manner of seething, scaly creatures. I needed an escape, and this seemed the perfect transport. I had just returned from another trip back to my native California, where I had begun to sort through my father’s and d
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