Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and in the spirit of celebrating, I decided to join in on Susanna Leonard Hill’s Valentiny Writing Contest. The prompt asks writers to tell a hopeful Valentine story for kids either in poetry or prose in 214 words or less. I thought I'd try my hand with some rhyming couplets--hope you enjoy … Continue reading Special Delivery
Autumn again. Slanting afternoon light and apple cider crispness. Leaves beginning to burn. Wood smoke in the air. It seems as if I’m just looking up from my desk and realizing that the season has changed outside. Suddenly, I’m thinking of wrapping a sweater around my shoulders. Suddenly, I’m noticing the long twilight at … Continue reading Autumn Again
I should know by now that summer is a hard time to keep up with a blog. Paradoxically, it's probably the busiest time of the year for me. But that's not the only reason that June went by without an update here. A few weeks ago, I lost my grandmother suddenly. It seems like I was … Continue reading Partings, New Things
My last post shared some honest thoughts from Dave Rudden about boys and how they are taught by expectation and example not to feel. I hope that if you’re reading this blog post, you’ve given his excellent essay a read first. I have never been a boy, so my experience with this subject is certainly … Continue reading You Can Be More: Writing for Boys
This past week, with the various tragedies that occurred all over the globe, will be remembered with sadness. My heart breaks for the enormous loss of life that so many have witnessed and that so many more will mourn. This time of year is usually when I find poetry more suited for expressing the ideas … Continue reading A Poem for November 13, 2015
One of the hardest things for any person to do is to explain how their mind works. For some, the difficulty is that they simply don’t know. This has its pros and cons. For others, they know exactly and could not, for the life of them, describe it in a coherent way. This too, has … Continue reading A Writer’s Soundtrack
Today, I’m writing this post after staggering upright from a wicked backhand rejection email. They say that email messages have no weight, no mass, but I’m convinced that this is a flat-out lie for rejection emails. The quicker they come back to you, the harder it knocks the breath out of you. If you don’t … Continue reading Victorian Poetry + Beginning a Writing Career = No End to the Philosophy
I've had a few weeks now where my posts have been more of the nonfiction bent, and while that is all well and good, I do spend most of my writing time telling stories--fictional stories, that is. This week, here's a short snippet of a new story that I'm working on. I'm writing this one as … Continue reading New Things, Old Things: A Story Set in Kensington Gardens
