Sleepless in SF

This is not a first but is creeping into a more frequent event. Once in a while, some idea or notion gets into your head and sleep is pushed aside by excitement, enthusiasm or just plain worry. I have this brand new place to write…a website that includes a place to write about writing. That […]

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Kindness Matters

My mother seemed always to have an answer for every state of the human condition. A turn of phrase, an adage, an idiom, a quotation that addressed a predicament in which I or my siblings found ourselves. One of these is well-known and the photo here begins as my mother would have, but goes on […]

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Writing About Writing is More Fun Than…

Writing! And as soon as I had thought of the title for this blog, I recalled an encounter that made a mark and was instrumental in guiding me forward. Years ago, I attended a literary event and had a conversation with an escapee from a New England family. I believed, being also from New England, […]

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Franken-Novel, Perfectionism & The Dark Side of Critique Groups

You know how it is when you read something and wish you had written it? Here’s one example I want to share… (Don’t let the image at the top scare you!)

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What Does a Writer Need? – Repost

This article was posted a few months before I moved from Wales, where I’d continued my writing and became a founding member and director of a women’s co-operative publishing company, Honno. September 23, 2011 I’m in the process of clearing 30 years of accumulated essentials. Besides all the accumulation related to family and friends, I […]

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Review: Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!

Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner! by Lochlainn Seabrook My rating: 5 of 5 stars Born and raised a Yankee, this book was a mind-opener. To be honest, I was ready for another point of view and Lochlainn Seabrook delivered, full-throttle, no holds barred, with conviction. I had […]

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Deadheading for Fun and Freedom

First, an brief explanation of the process of deadheading: with a very sharp secateur, you snip away the dead parts of plants so that the plant no longer pumps energy into the dead area. This somewhat similar to ‘phantom limb’ sensation. Since my secateur is buried in storage boxes awaiting the acquisition of a real […]

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Illustrious Company for WALL

My publisher, Montlake/Amazon, is offering my debut novel, WAIT A LONELY LIFETIME, in its January/February Sale. My novel is in wonderful company, as you can see, 25 Kindle books for $0.99 each deal. The sale is on until February 8, 2014. You can choose up to 25 books for $0.99 each. Stock up, and please pick […]

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Stone Wallace’s Black Ransom

I’m delighted to have the opportunity to feature the cover image for Stone Wallace’s upcoming release of Black Ransom, a Western in keeping with the Noir tradition of greats like 40 Guns (a Barbara Stanwick film I had the privilege of seeing at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco last month). Black Ransom will be […]

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