Musings on a Prussian Coffee Service
Many family heirlooms—or future heirlooms—have sentimental value because of the stories behind them. But the stories of others are lost to time. I have a porcelain coffee pot and six matching demitasse cups and saucers that are in the latter category. My mother sent the set to me not too many years after I got […]
How Close Are We To the Civil War?
An article in The Wall Street Journal on May 10, 2014, by Michael M. Phillips, titled “Still Paying for the Civil War: Veterans’ Benefits Live On Long After Bullets Stop,” fascinated both my husband and me. My husband, because he has read many volumes of military history about the Civil War. Me, because I like […]
Celebrate Children’s Book Week
The 95th celebration of Children’s Book Week begins May 12, 2014. Children’s Book Week is designed to foster the love of reading in children. It is the longest-running literary initiative in the United States, and is administered by Every Child A Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization. I’ve written before about how important reading was in […]
Icing on My Cake for Mother’s Day
My daughter was born the day before Mother’s Day. Some years her birthday has been on Mother’s Day—including her first birthday. Obviously, a small child’s birthday takes precedence over Mother’s Day. Even a grown daughter’s birthday takes precedence in our family. But I’ve never minded sharing “my” day with my daughter. After all, her birth […]
30 Gold Nuggets from a Writing Conference
I spent this past weekend (May 1-3) at the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc., conference in Oklahoma City. This was my fourth trip to this conference, and each time it has been worthwhile. What I learned at OWFI 2014 is probably different from what others experienced, because we all attended different sessions and we are all […]
Mother’s Day Memento
On one of the spring vacations my family took, we were in a gift shop full of tchotchkes. Neither my husband nor I am fond of tchotchkes, and I was ready to move on. Nothing in the store looked interesting to me. But our children wanted to browse, to find some small mementoes to take […]
Getting To Yes . . . Or No . . . Or Any Decision
I’ve mentioned before that my son and I are almost complete opposites on the Myers-Briggs personality types. I am an ISTJ (or an INTJ, depending on the day). He is an ENFP. As a J (Judging type), I make decisions very quickly, often too quickly. Like most Ps (Perceiving type), my son has difficulty relinquishing […]
Fact and Fiction: A “First Hand” Description of San Francisco in April 1848
Henry Vizetelly, an English publisher who was in San Francisco at the time of the 1848 gold discovery, wrote a novel entitled Four Months Among the Gold-Finders in Alta California: Being the Diary of an Expedition from San Francisco to the Gold Districts. He used the pseudonym J. Tyrwhitt Brooks. Fiction or not, the novel […]
Wallace Stegner: On the Teaching of Creative Writing
When I first began writing, I read lots of books on writing—many on the techniques of writing fiction, some on the writing life, and a few on grammar. But I didn’t read anything on teaching creative writing; that was too far beyond my ken. In the past seven years, I have drafted three novels, many […]
Easter Vigil Mass: Katholische Kirche?
One of the Easter vacations my family took when my kids were young was a trip to San Francisco. My husband was a Naval Reserve officer, and he got us into the Marines Memorial Club near Union Square downtown. It was a great location—convenient to many city attractions and to buses and cable cars. I […]