Broadway Tunes and the Game of Life
I grew up listening to Broadway show tunes on my father’s stereo system. Actually, not to all Broadway show tunes, but only to those for which my parents had record albums—My Fair Lady, Camelot, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music. I think it was an easy way for my mother to keep the children […]
The Second Anniversary of Loss
Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of my father’s death, which happened just six months after my mother’s death. I find myself in a much better place than I was on the first anniversary. I wrote a year ago today that I was melancholic—past the immediacy of loss, but still mourning. Now, a year further into […]
My Earliest Memories: What Is Real and What Isn’t?
As we begin the new year, I’ve been looking back at my life. From time to time I try to decide what my earliest memory is. I recently wrote about the first Thanksgiving I remember, in November 1958 when I was two-and-a-half. But I have earlier memories yet. I might remember my brother’s birth when […]
A Christmas Scene in 1849
Here’s a brief Christmas scene from Now I’m Found that takes place on Christmas Day 1849. By this point in the novel, my protagonist Mac owns a store in Sacramento. Two other characters, Consuela and Huntington, live there with him. I’ll let you read the book to find out how all this came to pass. […]
My 500th Post
By WordPress’s calculations, this is my 500th post. I’ve been blogging on this site for just under five years. I really don’t know whether I thought this blog would last five years. It’s seen me through a lot. My mother’s decline into Alzheimer’s and move into assisted living. A daughter’s broken leg and surgery. My […]
O Christmas Tree . . . and Keepsakes Ornaments
My husband and I are fans of live Christmas trees. Actually, I’d be tempted to have an artificial tree, but I love the evergreen scent of a real tree. So I put up with the messy needles every year. For the past several years, we’ve purchased Fraser firs, an evergreen native to the Appalachian region. […]
Back to Square One: My New Work in Progress and Scrivener
After I published Now I’m Found in late September 2016, I found myself at loose ends with my writing. I still had to draft regular posts for this blog and for another blog I author, but for the first time in ten years, I didn’t have a novel that I was in the process of […]
On Rocking Horses, Reading About Horses, and Real Horses
I’ve posted about my first Christmas before. Someone in the family—my father or grandfather—was good enough to take a picture of all the presents I received from Santa Claus before I was awake to see them. (Not that, at eight months, I could have done too much damage to them.) Many of those first Christmas […]
On Heffalumps, Hookers, and Humor
Here’s a (sort of) Christmas story I’ve never posted before. I wrote it for a writers’ group holiday party a few years ago. I hope you enjoy it. On Heffalumps, Hookers, and Humor The winter when I was four, I wasn’t supposed to know how to read, but I did. When Mommy read me stories […]
My Parents’ Engagement Party
My parents were married in June 1955, after about seven years of dating—they’d met as high school freshmen and begun dating when they were sophomores. Their relationship survived the remainder of high school and four years at different colleges. Sixty-two years ago this month, in December 1954, during Christmas break of their senior year of […]