Have you ever thought of starting your own book club? Spring is the perfect season to try something new. Why not send a feeler out to some friends and see if you can collect a group of four-ten readers, decide on a meeting place, and launch your club.
I started one [...]

March is a tricky month. It can arrive like a lion, carrying an armload of snow and viruses, or it can blow down trees with a forceful rainstorm (we’ve got two down today), or it can tiptoe in on rays of sunshine and then blast the ground with a sudden freeze the day before Easter.
I [...]

This past Tuesday was a big day for me. Why was it special? Because I had a date at our county jail.
Where I grew up, the county jail was a small affair and even though I’d never been inside the building, it didn’t seem threatening. Now I live in Richmond, Virginia. It’s not a small [...]

I’m a little nervous and excited about an errand I have to run today. After almost six months, an antique music box that has been in my family for ages is ready to be picked up. I would consider this box my greatest [...]

Last night I watched an unusual and captivating movie called Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. I love historical mysteries and as this movie was based on Patrick Suskind’s Das Parfum, I thought this might be right up my alley. With the exception of one scene I could have done without, it was. Try to [...]

Writers are constantly scrambling to make sure they’ve done all they can to promote their latest release. The tough part of the balancing act is not to spend every penny (and they’re usually pennies, not dimes!) of our advances on promotion.
Lately, it seems that every author has a website and a blog. Those things are [...]

This will be an extremely short post as I must spend today standing watch over my young cat. His leg was crushed by something on Thursday afternoon and he dragged himself home and collapsed just inside the cat door. I fought against panic and managed to get him to the vet and on Friday he [...]

After reading Diana’s post I realized that it’s been a long time since I wrote a blog aiming to help the unpublished writers out there. I’m sure there are a number of you folks who have begun manuscripts, are getting reading to pitch manuscripts, or have characters roaming around inside your head that you don’t [...]

Like Heather, my brain is a bit tapped this week and I can’t think of any brilliant prose this morning. My kids are watching Veggie Tales and I’m on my third cup of coffee, hoping that the caffeine will kick in sometime. My husband has to work all weekend, my babysitters are all busy with [...]

Two months ago, our mailman, “Mr. John,” suggested that it might be time to buy a new mailbox.
“Why?” I asked him in surprise. Our mailbox is in perfect shape, doesn’t have a clematis blocking the flag or a trumpet vine obscuring the house number, and it is painted a shade of red to match [...]