My granddaughter loves books, and she especially loves balloons. In last week’s blog post, I featured a list of Ofelia’s favorite books from the third year of her life; I was surprised by some she selected. This week, as I reviewed the list of books she’s had read to her, or has looked at, over… Read More
Those of us who love to read can’t help but be drawn into the multitude of “The Best” book lists that are published at or near the end of a calendar year. You ask yourself, are any of my favorite books on the list? Are there any books on the list that I’d like to… Read More
Following my author visit to Scandia Elementary School on March 28, 2018, third grade teacher Kelly Duncan asked her students to write “reflection papers” about my visit.
There is value in submitting creative work to small, local, or independent publishers as a means of building community. These three poems were published on different occasions in the Southwest Journal within the past several years.
At the end of March I made author visits to two Minnesota Schools: Scandia Elementary International Baccalaureate (IB) World School and River Grove, an elementary charter school in its first year of operation. Scandia is in the Forest Lake Area School District and River Grove in the Stillwater Area Schools. My visit was sponsored by… Read More
The decision to travel to British Columbia this past November was an impulsive one, uncharacteristic of my ‘long-range planning’ approach to life acquired during my career as a public school administrator. My invitation to do so appeared on the front page of the New York Times Travel Section on October 2, 2017, with the headline: “Vancouver Island, Through an Artist’s Eyes.”
It is the spring of 2002. My husband, Ralph, our daughter, Britt, and I are in the back seat of a black sedan heading 120 kilometers north of Beijing, China to the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China. Driving the sedan is Miss Wang, legal assistant to Xu Yi Ping, a Chinese patent… Read More
Where do writers draw their inspiration? From many books, articles, trips, conversations, and recipes! In Chapter 23 of The Secrets of Eastcliff-by-the-Sea, “Tea Party,” Annaliese hosts a tea party for her three cousins and their sock monkeys. Nora, Nadine, and Nell Ann have a surprise for Annaliese … their mother gave their sock monkeys away!… Read More
Eastcliff-by-the-Sea, the manor house and estate where Annaliese Easterling’s family lived, was inspired by an operating inn with a similar name — Dalvay-by-the-Sea — located on Prince Edward Island. On each of my many visits to Prince Edward Island, I made a special point to “do lunch” at Dalvay, always ordering the same thing: steamed… Read More
In The Secrets of Eastcliff-by-the-Sea, Annabelle can figure out parts of the mystery because she reads letters written by her family members. There’s no way to do that with texts and e-mails. How will we solve our mysteries? Writing letters to family and friends is a way of saying how much you care about someone,… Read More