April is National Poetry Month! So here's one of my earlier pieces to celebrate the power of the Word. Words jingle in my ears like pennies in the pocket of my navy wool pea coat. When I was ten, one word would buy a licorice whip red or black or a thick block of Bazooka … Continue reading Just One
I hardly need to say this because we all know it, but hey, it’s been a weird couple of years. This November I am grateful for family members and friends who have accompanied me on this journey. But I also want to say I am so grateful for Writing, the actual activity, the practice of writing. Writing has … Continue reading November Musing
April is National Poetry Month! I've dug down deep for this one, written for my Mom at least 30 years ago when she was the age that I am now. For My Mother and Other Collectors of Strays I want you to contradict me. When I shiver in my cavernous apartment complaining that autumn … Continue reading For My Mother and Other Collectors of Strays
Imagine a world where suddenly and inexplicably the sick and injured begin to emit light. Open wounds shine like flash lights, acne sparkles like glitter, leukemia patients shimmer and glow, and muscle tension can be seen “twisting like algae in an underwater current.” This is the stunning phenomenon that drives Kevin Brockmeier’s The Illumination. Though labeled a novel, … Continue reading The Illumination, a review
Anderson Cooper came by my house to repair the busted slats on my back fence and to tell me I use too many ellipses in my writing. I told him I use ellipses because I like them!— but I told him not in a “I’ll do what I want” kind of way. I told … Continue reading Dot Dot Dot
I wrote this a month ago with my Thursday night writing group, and I didn’t use too many of the prompts, though I did use these: out to lunch, for whose eyes do I write today, shedding inhibitions, “A writer is not one who answers questions but who asks them.” What I miss most is going … Continue reading What I Miss Most
Last week I listed a few of my favorite books for cold weather reading and gifting. This week, allow me to tell you about a few of my favorite read-aloud picture books for kids. These are all books I loved to read to my students when I was teaching, and I feel safe in saying they’re modern … Continue reading Read-Aloud Picture Books
We’ve all been “sheltering” now, to one degree or another, for seven and a half months. Initially I was both alarmed and secretly pleased—because suddenly I could be my introvert self without apology. My biggest fear was that the whole thing would end too soon—before I completed the half-finished novel I’d been sitting on for the past … Continue reading Sheltering, Part 4
This is a reprint of one of my most popular stories, a fun little mystery for October. Enjoy! Memorie is in a cozy pace, propped up with pillows and notebook, herbal tea and the most affectionate of her three cats at her right hip on the sofa next to her. She has arrived at this … Continue reading Memorie and the Coyote
Written with my Thursday night writing group with the following prompts: extra bread, to this day, time and place, small injuries, new sense of dread, donut shop, marvelous, no more accidents, easy to. . . , autumn leaves, I smell cat, the bed, warm evening, God's waiting room, third conflict in a year, running in … Continue reading Extra Bread
