Sunday Inspiration: “Fear Nothing”
The bracelet says ‘Fear Nothing.’ It was given to me by my friends, and it was made for me and my friends during the period of time that I was going through chemotherapy. And I still wear it, because it’s a great reminder of friendship and how my buddies and others came together in my…
Read MoreCharm Bracelets: Road Map to a Life
There I was in a shop on State Street in Santa Barbara, wandering through stacks of items old and new. In a display case I noticed a charm bracelet, replete with dozens of charms, so thick with them, in fact, that I felt I was looking at the story of someone’s life. Why was the…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: “It is in giving…”
I have lived with passion and in a hurry, trying to accomplish too many things. I never had time to think about my beliefs until my 28-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a coma for a year and I took care of her at home, until she died in my arms in December…
Read MoreSomewhere Between Luck and Trust: Cristy Haviland
On Thursday I introduced you to Georgia Ferguson, one of two major characters in Somewhere Between Luck and Trust. Georgia was familiar because she was a minor character in One Mountain Away, the previous book. Now, enter Cristy Haviland, a fresh face in the series and a young woman fresh out of prison whose own…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: “Literacy is a bridge…”
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural…
Read MoreSomewhere Between Luck and Trust: Georgia Ferguson
For an author, part of the fun of a series is choosing which characters to feature in upcoming books. With the Goddesses Anonymous series (debuting in 2012 with One Mountain Away) a handful of women are introduced in book one, each to theoretically have her own story as time passes. Almost immediately after One Mountain…
Read MoreSomewhere Between Luck and Trust: Lucas Ramsey’s Pasta e Fagioli with Shrimp
Lucas Ramsey, a major character in Somewhere Between Luck and Trust, is a gourmet cook and the author of a mystery series featuring Zenzo, a police detective whose cooking rivals Lucas’s own. Lucas invites Georgia to share a simple meal, pasta e fagioli with shrimp, which he has devised and hopes to use in a…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy
If you’re just beginning my Goddesses Anonymous series, you might wonder where the title “Goddesses Anonymous” comes from. In One Mountain Away, the first book of the series, Charlotte Hale, the major character, tells her minister Analiese Wagner how meaningful the legend of the Buddhist goddess Kwan Yin has become to her. In Somewhere Between Luck…
Read MoreSomewhere Between Luck and Trust: What’s It All About?
Where Luck Meets Trust, Miracles Can Happen Cristy Haviland served eight months in prison, giving birth behind bars to the child of the man who put her there and might yet destroy her. Now she’s free again, but what does that mean? As smart as she is, she has never learned to read. And that’s…
Read MoreHow I Spend My Summer Vacation: The Joys of Chautauqua Institution
Some of you have asked about the place where I spend my summers, so today a photo essay. Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua, NY,was founded in 1874 as the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, an experiment in out-of-school learning. Although the Assembly was founded by Methodists, other denominations participated from the beginning. Now the Institution is an…
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