These words seem so obvious in a way, and yet so difficult to achieve. Certainly love is better, hope is better, and optimism is better. But the hard part is keeping those values central in our lives, like the sun being framed by the heart of hands in the photo. Every day,  a multitude of…

  Do you suffer from The Impostor Syndrome? You would be surprised how many people do — including me. No matter how successful you may be, you may feel like an impostor and fraud. I feel it sometimes when I’m with colleagues, which I am now. Attending the annual NINC conference are authors who have…

I found this delightful photo online with several others showing a variety of animals with their offspring (you have to see the opossums). Parenting comes so naturally to the animal world, but for humans there’s quite a learning curve. What does it take to be a good parent? A writer-friend told me over the summer…

This week marked the 14th anniversary of 9-11, and I know for many if not most of us, this was a solemn, difficult day of remembering the victims and all those who loved and honored them. Most of you know my husband is a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Several years ago when he was the senior minister…

I’m on the road home to Florida today, and this inspirational quote from Rumi seemed perfect. That’s Sarasota’s Myakka River in the background. Have you ever found satisfaction after a trip away taught you the true pleasures of home? I’m lucky I have two places I love, but I am always thrilled to find meaning waiting…

After reading my latest novel, The Color of Light, one of my readers sent me the link to an organization called Operation Inasmuch. Their name comes from these words from Jesus: “In as much as you did it for the least of these, you did it for me.” The reader believed this group was in…

So, what makes you come alive? Perhaps it’s cooking or raising children. Maybe it’s traveling or your job or maybe even changing the world. I became a novelist because writing makes me come alive. I love creating characters who discover what makes them come alive, then watching them leap off the pages. What brings you to life?…

This quote from a song by Leonard Cohen was one of my inspirations for my latest book The Color of Light. The quote reminds me of a story by Rachel Naomi Remen in her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings. Remen is a physician as well as a therapist, and one of her patients was a young man with…

My new book, The Color of Light, illuminates the lives of several people living in Asheville, North Carolina, who are undergoing struggles of different kinds, all of which have to do with perseverance in one way or another. One of the most heart-wrenching struggles is a family who has become homeless through no fault of…