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Social Media: What Should You Say and How Should You Say It?
Let’s take a little quiz, just for fun: How much time do you spend on social media each day? Add in all the platforms you use, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. How much of your news do you get from social media? If you use social media as a news source, do you trust…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Be Curious!
“Be curious, not judgmental.” -Walt Whitman I heard this quote on the charming television show Ted Lasso on Apple TV the other night, and it struck a chord, especially during this time of significant change in our nation. The character Ted Lasso was responding to a man who was obnoxious and a bully by sharing…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: In Memory of George Floyd & so many others
Sunday Inspiration: New Year’s Resolutions
“New Year’s Resolutions are a bit like babies: They’re fun to make but really difficult to maintain.” Anonymous I confess that I’m skeptical about making new year’s resolutions because they are so much easier to make than to maintain. But I do believe that setting realistic goals, whether it’s at the new year or any other…
Read MoreWoodstock and Stone County: Fifty Years Ago Today
This morning Alexa informed me that today is the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock. As Newsweek puts it: “The three-day festival was host to performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Ravi Shankar, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, and is considered the pinnacle of the “summer of love” culture of the late 1960s.” I find it…
Read MoreGive Me Your Tired…
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus (1883) Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome;…
Read MoreWe Interrupt This Program for a Word from our Sponsor
I survived launch day! I’m delighted to say that yesterday A Family of Strangers went on sale. My husband bought freshly picked garden flowers at the farmer’s market to celebrate, and after a shopping trip for paint for our newly renovated bathroom (half-successful) and a bed frame with a simple headboard (not successful) we went…
Read MoreWhich Three Wrongs Would You Right?
By now many of you have had a chance to read One Mountain Away. If you haven’t, an important element of the novel involves Charlotte Hale, the principal character, who is looking back at her life. Charlotte isolates three things she did in the past that she wishes she could change, then she sets about…
Read MoreWriters on the Beach
I’m at the Novelist’s Inc. conference on St. Pete Beach this week, with old friends and new. I attended last year and learned more in a day than I’ve learned in all the previous conferences I’d ever attended. So back I went. Ever wonder what writer’s talk about when we’re together? (And I don’t mean…
Read MoreSunday Poetry: The Nothingness of Air
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here. Today’s poem, Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver seems perfect for mid-October, when the anticipation of winter is always with us, even on days when summer seems to be asserting itself, although briefly. The…
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