A writer on my social media page announced he’d published his first book, recently.  Overjoyed, he included a favorable comment from a well-known book review company.   “I’m a genius,” he concluded tongue in cheek.  Like a first kiss, his elation was understandable.  Who

Like the boy who cried wolf, U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders has long blamed oligarchs for weakening our democracy. Of late, his prognostications ring true.  Vast fortunes concentrated in the hands of large corporations and a few individuals have weakened the middle class, leading the

In my mid-forties, one of my duties as the head of a local teachers union was to attend a national convention in Florida.   My mother, in her sixties at the time, and, always eager to travel, suggested we take this opportunity to make a cross-country motor trip together. Though diff

I received an email last week from a woman who’d read my memoir, Getting Lost to Find Home. I LOVED your book and am recommending it to my book club and my other book-reading friends. Thank you for writing your memoirs in the wonderful book Getting Lost to Find Home.  It is truly

The podcaster interviewing me about my memoir, Getting Lost to Find Home sounded incensed. Why had I clung to my engagement plans for two years before admitting I was being jilted?  “Couldn’t you see it coming?” the man asked. His question wasn’t friendly, but it didn’t sto

On an upcoming edition of my book talk show, Just Readi It, author Karl Marlantes reveals the struggle he faced to publish the first of his two best-selling novels, Matterhorn.  A young man newly returned from the Vietnam War, he was determined to recapture his experience as a soldie

Writing a book is a form of producing life. Like the biological procedure, dealing with afterbirth is tricky.  Exposing the fruits of one’s labor to critical appraisal is heart-pounding stuff.  The creator adores the offspring, but the eyes of strangers, like a camera, take an obj

A recent article on scams in Writer Beware has prompted me to write the following disclaimer. None of my blogs are written with assistance from Artificial Intelligence (AI). Google helps me with research and an editing program checks my content for technical errors. Everything else is

My essay below first appeared in the ebook magazine Women Writers, Women’s Books on July 27, 2020.  This is a reprint of that article.   EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELL “Everyone has a story to tell,” said the woman seated opposite me at my retirement center. Somewhere in her 80s

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