On a crumbling, narrow road, thirty-two houses sit on either side of a gravel-ditched apron. My home is one of the few remaining cottages built in 1947 for wealthy folks to escape the city to the north suburbs. A patchwork of gray-blue clouds pulls like taffy across the eastern sky. The earth, browned and parched, carries unseasonably warm breezes for [...]
With summer’s spirit still lingering in my thoughts, Fall is muscling her way into them. It’s a visual time when change is never more apparent than now. Awareness is heightened as my surroundings of deep green fade from the flora’s coats, and petals of red and yellow and purple drift gently toward the parched earth. Before I let go of [...]
Vestiges of fall lay on the ground in bits of dried leaves, acorns, weakened limbs, and memories of a landscape once in vibrancy and motion. A blanket of frost covers it, encased like a tomb to be nudged by a dawning sky and the promise of sun. I was out for a hike in the early morning when I saw [...]
Last month I wrote about how the definition of memoir, characterized by a single incident during a part of one’s life (not an entire life), can hold writers back from writing their memoir. As a writer, maybe you can’t see one outstanding incident to create memoir; there are many experiences that happened to you. And maybe you can’t see a [...]
Have you ever liked an author’s second book more than, let’s say, their first? It’s not that an author’s latest book is better; it may be because the writing was different. You may have enjoyed their work of fiction over their first nonfiction book. I’ve always been a writer. I journaled through my anxious teens and in college, I recorded [...]
I completed a final draft of a blog post (I had started it as a Word doc) last week about how our most vivid memories come from our childhoods. I explored why that might be. I fired up my laptop to post the blog the next day, but was stalled as my computer ran updates. Twenty minutes later, I logged [...]
It seems that some of us are always trying to find our figurative home. Maybe for others, they always feel at home. I had written in my memoir, Under the Birch Tree, about making connections and discovering my self. I wondered if my discoveries would continue though my story had come to an end with the publication of my book. [...]
Today we celebrate Father’s Day by connecting with fathers and grandpas in ways that make us feel comforted, secure and with the familiar, like being at home. For me, as a little girl, my desire to seek a connection with my father was as strong as my wish to feel at home with him. Back then, a connection, inherent between [...]
One August afternoon in 1967, Mom dressed me in a navy dress, patterned in tiny white polka dots, with an appliqué of paintbrushes and an artist’s palette in primary colors at the hem, and a white Peter Pan collar around my neck. White anklet socked feet, fitting snuggly into blood-red Mary Janes, anchored my chubby legs. While standing at attention [...]
The first time I entered a writing contest I won. A win says it all, a handshake in welcome, validation for a job well done and self-confidence to tackle another challenge. Writers who enter a writing contest submit their best work with the optimistic chance they could win, securing a welcome, confirmation and boost in confidence. I admire a writer’s [...]