What I Learned from Helen Keller and My Father

My introduction to the life story of Helen Keller was through the film, The Miracle Worker. With the help of the acting brilliance of Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, I watched the impaired little girl transform not only herself but her family and teacher by her determination to overcome the loss of sight and hearing […]

Continue Reading

What’s So Great About Teachers?

I’ve posted my monthly blog at Avalon Authors. This month I’m writing about the teachers who inspired me. Who were your inspirations? Did one teacher change your life?

Continue Reading

Wait a Lonely Lifetime – Paperback

Wait a Lonely Lifetime is now available in paperback from Montlake.  You can take a peek inside and read the first review. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area in October, save this date: 

Continue Reading

In Mourning

My heart is breaking for the American people of whom I am proud to be one. As our President and Foreign Secretary have stated, the United States of America stands for freedom. Those who are guilty of this shameful, horrific act know who they are and why they did it. The guilt lies at the […]

Continue Reading

Wait a Lonely Lifetime @ Florey’s Book Co.

The great independent bookstore, Florey’s Book Company, in Pacifica, CA has Wait a Lonely Lifetime in stock and I will be there on October 20th to talk about how the book came about, discuss writing and publishing. There will be a reading from the book and actors’ recordings of Sylviana’s and Eric’s first letters to […]

Continue Reading

Memoir of an Army Wife, 1941-1945

I’m proud to announce that my mother’s long awaited memoir of her experiences and journeys during World  War II is available at Smashwords, Amazon and Kobo. Soon on Barnes & Noble. My mother entrusted the stories in Following the Troops to me in 1991 while I was working on Parachutes and Petticoats. Although I was […]

Continue Reading

Latest Post for Avalon Authors

“Never Put in Writing” is my post for this month at Avalon Authors’ Blog. What I learned from high rise window cleaners may seem a stretch but my mother would be proud I’ve learned that lesson.

Continue Reading

To Self-Publish or Not to…

A short piece from me about a long piece from David Vinjamuri. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, detailed and thoroughly researched, this article, Publishing is Broken, We’re Drowning in Indie Books and That’s a Good Thing goes into depth about the advantages and disadvantages of independent (self-) publishing, gives reasons for its growth and predictions for the […]

Continue Reading

Parachutes & Petticoats Cited

Parachutes & Petticoats, my second book with Honno, is cited in Alex McAulay’s Shelter Me.  Pretty thrilling to be research material. McAulay used the collection of autobiographical writings by Welsh women and makes a reference to me and my co-editor, Deidre Beddoe. I stumbled across this when searching for my own titles. Nice feature this […]

Continue Reading

Pareto and the Published Writer

Why social media isn’t the magic bullet for self-epublished authors This article refers to the Pareto Principle: (Wikipedia): “The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the” whole is 20% of the profit/problem/solution/​etc. The […]

Continue Reading