We have a love/hate relationship with the law. We must have rules to build a society. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding gives us the story of lost boys forming their own laws in an imperfect society to control their fear and desperation, a social order based on the example set by their experience of […]
How ‘This Can’t Be Love’ Happened
What can I say about my own most recent novel? I loved writing it and the hero, Mike Argent, is now my favorite grumpy construction worker. I first entertained the idea of writing a novel set during the Fringe when I was part of a small group of Welsh theater folk performing a Jeeves and […]
Macho Man, Metro Man, Modern Man
All who read my previous post about Alpha Beta men will have already concluded that I am particularly partial to the male of the species. How this came about from the fourth daughter in a family of five girls and one brother to a fully grown man-lover isn’t hard to understand. Close contact. Through my […]
The Alpha-Beta Soup of Men
Reading books by men has become a regular activity for me. How better to understand the nature of the king? As a writer of romance, the male of the species takes a lot of my attention. We won’t find many romance writers for whom that is not true. For me, it also helps that I […]
War & Writing
I do not know why we allow it nor why so many men and women offer their lives in sacrifice to it but it seems that war is always with us. What are we fighting for? I am one of the Vietnam War generation. My parents and siblings were products of the two World and […]
More Salsa for Sunday
The following is a scene from Salsa Dancing with Pterodactyls (on the iBookstore) and is one of my favorites: … Her boss gripped the steering wheel as hard as his jaw was clenched. “From now, Burdis, this moment, our professional relationship is that. Exactly that.” “I never thought it was anything else,” she murmured. “Really? What […]
Gardening in the City
When I was a teenager, my mother asked me to help her in the garden with weeding as part of my contribution to family life. Chores were bad enough, but weeding was about the worst on any Saturday. Chores were a part of being a member of the household and I did my share, unless […]
On the Approaching 12th Anniversary of 09/11/01
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer I have always been a political and social […]
Tribute to the Greatest Generation: Guest Writer: J.L. Salter
As my first guest writer, I’m very happy to present, J.L. Salter, who is writing today about one of my favorite topics: World War II. As an editor of two volumes of women’s autobiographies about their experiences during this devastating war, I became even more interested in this period of world history than when my […]
‘The Night Before Labor Day’ in Time for Labor Day
Phew! I made it. ‘Twas the Night Before Labor Day has been released today – the day before Labor Day. This is the fourth story in the Nights Before serial novel. In this story, Jocelyn Tavers comes to grips with her latest author, Dr. Ezekiel Verge, whose novel, Stress Test, puts her long-held convictions about her […]