Writer’s Block, Mrs. Tuller, and Real Life
I’ve been stuck a few times while writing my historical novels. My characters got into situations and I didn’t know how to get them out. When that happened, I brought in Mrs. Tuller. Mrs. Tuller is one of the main characters in my Oregon Trail books. She is the wife of Doc Tuller, an older […]
Pie Week, Pi Day, and Gooseberry Pie
Last week was Pie Week, I learned on National Public Radio. Why Pie Week in the U.S. is in July, I have no idea – I didn’t catch that on NPR. The British celebrated Pie Week March 5-11 this year, which at least is closer to Pi Day (March 14). No, that’s not a typo […]
Independence Day at Independence Rock
Emigrants to Oregon in the 1840s knew that if they reached Independence Rock (located in what is now central Wyoming) by Independence Day, they had a good chance of beating the snows in the Western mountains. Independence Rock, 800 miles from the Missouri River, was a huge landmark along the Oregon Trail. Most emigrants were […]
I have another post up on Write Brain Trust, listing all the books that this wonderful writing group has published in the past year, including my own Family Recipe. Check out these books by Kansas City area writers.
Fred Geary Woodcuts: A Window Into History Feeds Today’s Imagination
I happened upon an exhibit of Fred Geary’s woodcuts at the Kansas City Public Library’s Central Branch earlier this week. It was another example of how writing historical fiction has changed my perspective on the world. (See my earlier post on reading a newspaper article about modern gold panning.) Geary’s woodcuts were mostly done in the […]
Arachnophobia and Love Revisited
The spiders are back already. After a mild winter and a hot spring and start to summer in the Midwest, they are creeping out of the attic earlier this year and bigger than ever. So I thought I would post my essay, Arachnophobia and Love, from my Family Recipe book. I hope you enjoy it. P.S. No […]
Writing Memoir: Family Myth Defines Us, Unless We Define Ourselves
Earlier this month I attended the Kansas Authors Club, District 2, retreat at Lake Doniphan Conference & Retreat Center in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. (Yes, the Kansas authors were brave enough to cross the state line. The Border Wars have been over for a long, long time.) My favorite part of the day was the morning session […]
Fort Laramie: Outpost of Civilization to Weary Travelers
By mid-June, the emigrants traveling the Oregon Trail in the 1840s had trekked 650 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Fort Laramie, in what is now Wyoming. Although they had traveled for two months or more, they had only completed one-third of the journey from Independence to Oregon. Most of the wagon companies were weary and […]
Dad, Me, and the New Capri
In the fall of 1972, a few months after I got my driver’s license, my father bought a sporty new Capri sedan. The Capri would be my mother’s car, replacing her small Ford Falcon station wagon, the car in which I had learned to drive. The Falcon was an easy car to drive – small, good […]
My Father-in-law and the Fireflies
Fireflies don’t live in the western United States, and I never encountered them growing up in Washington State. I didn’t see my first firefly until after I was married and moved to Missouri. We were in my in-laws’ backyard on a hot, humid evening in June. It might even have been Father’s Day weekend when […]