Writing Contests: Feedback and Validation . . . And a Plug for OWFI and KCWG
I wasn’t able to go to the Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc. (OWFI) writing conference earlier this month. I’ve been several times in prior years, and I always get something out of it. (See here and here for earlier posts about OWFI conferences.) But I did submit several pieces to the OWFI contest this year. Writing […]
Oregon Spectator, May 22, 1851
Sometimes when I’m stuck on my historical novels about Oregon Territory, I go out to the Oregon Spectator newspaper for the month that I’m writing about and look for inspiration on what was actually on the minds of citizens of the day. I didn’t know what to write in today’s post, though I knew I […]
Confession: I Kill Plants
One of the downsides of listing our house for sale has been the need to keep it beautiful. Our realtor has been very helpful in staging each room to show it as advantageously as possible, but the items she has used make it feel like it isn’t our home. Brand new towels in all the […]
When Lightning Struck
A lot goes on in our family in May. Our daughter’s birthday. Mother’s Day. And, in years past, there was often a graduation or First Communion or Confirmation thrown in as well. My parents tried to visit in May to celebrate one or more of these occasions—they preferred May travel to February travel when our […]
The Story That Wrote Itself: An Epic Fail by Amazon
Every so often, something happens in real life that makes a good story. There is plot, there is conflict, there are characters. That happened to me last week. The characters were my daughter, her brother, and me. The conflict will be revealed if you read this post. I’ve mentioned before that my daughter’s birthday is […]
An Ongoing Search for My Mother
I’ve written before that I spent the first thirty years of my life trying not to be like my mother, and the next thirty realizing how much we were alike. And now that I’m over sixty? I’m trying to find my mother, who died when I was fifty-eight. Mother and I never were very close. […]
A Tale of Two Trunks
When I went away to college at age seventeen, I took my mother’s college trunk with me. She had been given the trunk when she went to college in 1951. When she gave it to me in 1973, it had sat in the unfinished part of the basement in my parents’ house ever since I […]
Treasures and Trash: Down Memory Lane
In our decluttering plan, I assigned my husband to clean the basement. Most of the things down there are his, so that made sense to me. Plus, the unfinished portion of our basement is known for harboring large spiders, and I have arachnophobia. He has been slow to get to this portion of his assignment, […]
Recipe: “Easy” Lemon Chicken
A couple of months ago, I thumbed through the recipe box my mother gave me before I was married. I don’t remember what I was looking for, but what I found was her recipe for Easy Lemon Chicken. This wasn’t a recipe from my childhood, and I don’t know where my mother got it. As […]
A Story I’m Glad I Told: My PG&E Stock
Tomorrow would have been my father’s 86th birthday, so I have been thinking about him. One story came to mind recently, a story I told him on my last visit with him, just a few weeks before he died. Here’s the background: When I got married in November 1977, as a wedding present, my parents […]