by Terra Osterling | Dec 20, 2019 | Storytelling, Uncategorized
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 my chin on...
by Terra Osterling | Dec 1, 2017 | Outside my comfort zone, Storytelling, Uncategorized
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...
by Terra Osterling | Sep 14, 2017 | Inspiration, Nature, Uncategorized
Rocks call to me. I could say simply that I collect rocks, but that feels reductive. Or perhaps even the opposite of what is true. Rocks collect me. Just this morning, The Husband mumbled that if I bring one more rock into the house, the floor might collapse. Picking...
by Terra Osterling | Apr 14, 2017 | Business of Freelance Writing, Literary Journalism Examples, Publishing, Storytelling, Uncategorized, Writing
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...
by Terra Osterling | May 1, 2016 | Creative Pursuits, Experiences, Interesting People, Uncategorized
The husband and I own a lot of music. Our combined CD collection exceeds 400 albums, and about 15 years ago he acquired an obscene amount of ‘shared’ music from a C-shift lab computer at work. Our digital catalog now numbers around 5,000 songs; two MP3 players are...
by Terra Osterling | Dec 9, 2012 | Block Cutting and Printing, Business of Freelance Writing, Creative Pursuits, How I got "here", Publishing, Storytelling, Uncategorized
One Christmas my mother made candy wreaths for our elementary school teachers. She bent a metal coat hanger into a perfect circle then painstakingly tied red and green curling ribbon around the hoop, adding peppermint candies along the way. She was very good at making...
