A cousin once asked if there were some way to capture our family stories. This blog presents, at least for now, the best way to do that...

I'm reading Francine Prose's What to Read and Why (Harper Perennial, 2018), a book that presents 33 essays on reading, and the written...

Holding my breath in anticipation of the final edits for The Rose and the Whip . . . anticipating what awaits behind the pulled shades,...

There are just some days when I feel like I don't have anything to say. On those days, it's best to hide out in my tower, put on some...

I recently read Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love by Dani Shapiro as part of my research for my next novel. One of...

What I find appealing about Paul Strand's photos, especially his early work in New York, is his interest in his subjects. He didn't just...

My mother and I always spent Christmas Eve at my grandparents house. My grandfather, wearing his special red felt Christmas vest, would...

Eudora Welty was both photographer and writer, and for this she has my ultimate respect and admiration. I recently read a critical...

Another week, another three thousand words. I thought about signing up for NaNoWriMo this year, but chickened out at the last minute....

Thanksgiving represents for me some of my happiest growing up memories. My grandmother's house was the traditional gathering place, with...

Joan Miro, Spanish painter, once said "painting or poetry is made as one makes love--a total embrace, prudence thrown to the winds,...

The main protagonist in my second novel is a man named Martin Lovering. As it turns out, this man is my sixth cousin four times removed....

Lines and shadows are everywhere. Lines are drawn from one point to another or to represent something seen or imagined. Lines are written...

As I continue to work on book number two, writing and rewriting the first fifteen or so pages (now six or seven times, more or less...

Save the Date: 1 November. Meet Frida (as in Kahlo) who spent more time and energy with the Day of the Dead than anyone, especially any...

Merriam-Webster Online defines the adjective abstracted as "expressing a quality apart from the object". As an artist, whether I'm...

There's two camps on this, do outline or don't outline. Sounds simple, but I'm finding with my second novel in its early days that it...

There's a chapter in my book "The Rose and the Whip" describing the humiliation of three Quaker women who were tied to a cart's tail,...

Merriam-Webster defines "second" as next to the first in place or time.