Black History Month: A White Author Reflects on Crafting African American Characters
I do not have many African American characters in my books, but I do include some—notably a Black couple and their children who were part of the 1847 wagon train in Lead Me Home. This family also appeared in Now I’m Found. I spent a great deal of time thinking about how to portray these […]
Ashes and Faith: Personal Choices on Ash Wednesday
Today is Ash Wednesday, but although I am Catholic, I will not be getting ashes on my forehead. I have received ashes many years in the past, and I have even been one of the lay ministers helping the priest distribute ashes, but it is not a ritual that appeals to me. I recently read […]
Adapting to a New Normal
As I’ve written before, my husband recently spent 30 days in the hospital. This was followed by three weeks in a rehab facility—a total of more than seven weeks away from home. He has only recently returned to our apartment. Those weeks felt long in every sense. Long days for him in bed and for […]
A Third Birthday!
Several weeks ago, my older granddaughter announced to me, with grammatical precision if not ideal diction, “I like pizza very much.” It wasn’t offered as an opinion so much as a statement of fact. So, for her third birthday earlier this week, her parents invited me to join them for a pizza dinner. I, too, […]
Seattle’s Waterways Evolved Over Time
Since I moved to Seattle, I’ve been reading about the city’s early history, when the Dennys and Borens and other early families settled on Elliot Bay in 1852 and began to build the town. They immediately began making their mark on the land—cutting trees and selling the timber to support their new lives in the […]
Lessons Learned from a Four-Week Hospital Stay
My husband was recently hospitalized for complications related to his Parkinson’s disease. I took him to the emergency room one morning, and he didn’t leave the hospital for over four weeks. As my husband said once it became clear he’d be there for a while, “I went into this as a volunteer, and now I […]
My Novels in Indie Author Project Select
I recently learned that my two most recent novels, When Heart Shall Fail and A Life of Joy, have been accepted into the Indie Author Project Select program—a milestone that I hope will expand where and how readers can discover my books. I’ve been fortunate to hear, again and again, that readers enjoy my novels. […]
Hope in the New Year
On January 1, I read a piece by Lauren Jackson in the New York Times’s Morning Column entitled “Your Hopes” Quoting Jamil Zaki, the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, Jackson said there are three things people need to cultivate hope: They first need to be able to envision a better future, either personally […]
Fireworks for 2026
It’s all over but the fireworks. The presents are opened. The menorah is put away. The Christmas carols are almost off the air. There are just a few hours left of 2025. How did you do on your goals? Are you celebrating accomplishments or simply the survival of another year? I’m doing both. I finished […]
Who Is Coming Tonight?
This time of year, mysteries abound. A Virgin birth. Angels and magi. A fat guy down a chimney. Whether the eggnog is spiked. Every family has its own traditions, some religious, some not. Some Christian, some anything but. Sometimes it’s hard to navigate as families expand, as old generations pass away and new ones are […]