Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in October away from home visiting relatives. The trips weren’t hard, but at the end of my travels, I was glad to be home. The first morning I returned, I started my journal entry “Home again . . . .” And a phrase popped into my mind, “Home […]
Halloween Celebrations Through the Centuries
Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays. As a kid, I suppose I enjoyed the candy. But even then, it was trouble to find a costume, and the weather generally did not cooperate. The one good thing, as I’ve written before, is that Catholic school kids got the following day off, because All […]
A New House To-Be
I mentioned in my last monthly newsletter that my husband and I have decided to build a new house. We built the house we’re in now and moved into it thirty-four years ago this month, in October 1984. Our current home has taken us from being young professionals and parents (I was a 29-year-old lawyer, parent […]
Haunting Book: The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin
Not everyone will be haunted by The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin, but I was. I was first haunted by the setting. This novel takes place on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, in the fruit-growing region of the state around Wenatchee. I’ve driven through the Wenatchee Valley many times and seen […]
A Scary Vacation: Falling in the Grand Canyon
A friend recently returned from a trip to the Grand Canyon. “The ranger told us only seven people had died in the park this year,” she told me. “I thought seven was a lot!” A quick Google search showed me that an average of twelve people die in the Grand Canyon National Park each year. […]
Haunting Books: The Buddha in the Attic, and Other Novels of the Asian-American Experience
This post is mostly about The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Oksuka, which my Book Club is reading this month. But I’ll also mention two other novels I’ve enjoyed that also deal in part with the Asian-American experience—Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See, and Love and Other Consolation Prizes, by Jamie Ford. […]
What’s In a Name? I Found Out in Fourth Grade
My fourth-grade teacher was a rather strict nun whose name I cannot remember. (I think she’d taken the name of two male saints—Sister James Thomas, or something of the sort.) There were forty-eight students in the class, and one of Sister’s first acts in the school year was to declare that she couldn’t have so […]
Haunting Books and Movies: FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
During October, I’ve traditionally posted about “haunting books” I’ve read in the past year. This year, I haven’t read many books I can honestly say were haunting. So I’ll post instead about the Movie Group I’m in. I joined this group about the time I retired after it had been underway for several years. A friend […]
The Fun Part of Writing: Meeting Readers . . . So Come Say Hello
One issue every writer must address is how much time to spend marketing as opposed to writing. At first, of course, it is most important to produce a high-quality book and get it published. Once a writer has published a book, however, marketing begins to take more time. Some of the time I spend marketing […]
Researching Historical Fiction: Making a Living in 1850s Oregon
Making a living was important to pioneers on the frontier, just as it has been at all periods of American history. I wrote last month about farming in the 1850s. Land was free for white males in Oregon to claim, so if a man was willing to clear the land and work it, he could […]