I was almost four and a half in the summer of 1977. Just a baby nerd-introvert. My mom was having a Tupperware party and wanted everyone out of the house, so my dad took my sister and me to the movies. I was so small that I could stand up in the row and put …
Storytelling
There is ‘always’ a story!
Swans and Ducklings: A Story of Self-Image
Not long ago I came across an old driver’s license issued to me in 2000, when I was 27 years old. Driver license photos do not tend to be the most flattering likeness of a person, but as I peer at a seventeen-years-younger me through the reader-portion of my progressive lenses, I think to myself, “Huh. …
Divining The Key
This spring marks five years of freelance writing. It was a slow start. I spent those first months reading and researching, while meeting my nephew’s school bus. Over the following two years, I cultivated business relationships and my time slowly began to fill with freelance work; I was ramping up for a big start to …
Adventures in Babysitting: Boys of Summer
Summer is over for nephews K. and D. <sad trombone> Summer 2016 was ‘all-baseball all the time’ as both boys are on travel teams. Practices started way back in March. For months, if they weren’t at a game, they were at practice. I don’t know how my sister does it with them on separate teams …
Sticky Stories: Notes from a Trade Show
One week ago today, I stretched way out of my comfort zone by participating as a vendor at the annual Women of Focus Trade Show. The one day event was the culmination of four months of expending time and money to prepare for my first big trade show. Why would a writer exhibit at a …
Dystopia vs. Post-Apocalypse: I’m Still Here
Dystopia. Noun. 1: An imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. 2: Anti-Utopia. Apocalypse. Noun. 1: The complete final destruction of the world. 2: An event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale. My imagination has been for some time residing, happily, in one dystopia or post-apocalypse after another. …
Junk Drawer
There are few moments in life equal to the satisfaction of having found a use for some junk that most people would have sent out with the trash years ago. Key rings, broken-off doodads, extra pieces, the lone zip tie, camera film containers, stacks of thin business-card sized refrigerator magnets, a strip of twist ties, …
The Book Cheat
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. A little more than 550 years ago, a metal-smith, a gem cutter and the owner of a paper mill collaborated on an invention that changed the world. The Gutenberg Press ushered in a paradigm shift in sharing information – mass produced printed material. Within 50 years, the mass-printing …
