The Sites Gun Shop in Arrow Rock, Missouri
I had the pleasure of spending a weekend in Arrow Rock, Missouri, earlier this month at a writing workshop sponsored by Friends of Arrow Rock. Arrow Rock is where my forthcoming novel, Lead Me Home, begins. Arrow Rock has preserved many of its original buildings from the mid-19th century, and I enjoyed the opportunity to […]
Top Tips For Students and Parents Attending College Fairs
Last week I represented Middlebury College at the Kansas City Private High School’s College Fair. I’ve done this event several times in recent years. I enjoy getting to talk about one of my favorite places and times of my life—my college experience at Middlebury (see here and here). I am an alum, not a professional […]
True Confessions: My Sister Peeled Her Peas
My sister is now eligible for AARP membership and is an accomplished professional, but I often remember her as a child. She was born when I was eight-and-a-half, and I left home when she turned nine, so our common experiences were limited to those few years. We were both picky eaters. I’ve written before about […]
Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee: A Writer's Perspective
Go Set a Watchman is not a sequel to Lee Harper’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I say that as a writer. As both a writer and a reader, I believe that we do a disservice to both books if we think of the later published book as a sequel to Mockingbird. I’ve been surprised by the […]
On Homes and Stability
This coming Sunday, September 13, is Grandparents Day. I was searching for a topic involving grandparents to write about, and I came across a post I wrote about my maternal grandparents’ house. I said in that post that these grandparents lived in that house from 1937 until 1962—twenty-five years. I thought their length of residency […]
Memories of Laughter, of Distance, and of Death
This picture of me and my brother was one of my mother’s favorites. It was taken in September 1972, shortly after we returned from the ceremony where he received his Eagle Scout award. He had just turned fifteen, and I was sixteen-and-a-half. That had been a long day in our home. My maternal grandmother, my […]
Lead Me Home—Cover Reveal!
It’s almost here! My novel, Lead Me Home, will be out later this fall. For now, smile with me at a close-to-final version of the cover. To follow my final progress on Lead Me Home and learn more about the book, you can Follow this blog on WordPress (click on “Follow” on the bar at […]
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, by Rinker Buck
I have immersed myself in the nineteenth century over the last few weeks, editing my Oregon Trail novel for what I hope has been the final big push. It still needs some tweaking, but the book is essentially done. While I was spending hours each day deep in my novel, I read each evening from […]
Happy Dog Day From a Currently Dog-Free Human
In this post I reveal my curmudgeonly nature. Today, August 26, is Dog Day. I am happy to report that I neither own, nor am owned by, any dogs at the moment. I grew up with dogs. My parents owned Punky when I was born, though they had to give her away because she didn’t […]
Fighting Fires: Now and Then
Many of the forest fires raging in the West this summer are not far from places I know—outside of Twisp and Omak and Okanogan near Lake Chelan in Washington State; Clark Fork near Lake Pend d’Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle; and other fires in Oregon. I remember fires from lightning raging across Rattlesnake Mountain when […]