How I Lost My Writing, And Found It Again

December 31, 2023 by - 14 Comments
Sun bursting through clouds over roadway

    This week, I wrote a short story. It isn’t just any short story. It’s the first piece of fiction I’ve completed in over four years. The words “four years” leave me breathless. In that I nearly passed out when I first realized it had been that long. I started writing fiction about thirty-five …Read More

It’s Mother’s Day and I See You

May 14, 2023 by - 2 Comments

    I hope my mother had friends who told her what a good mother she was. She and her sister were terribly close, and so I suspect she was my mother’s best listener. Not only was my mother also an excellent, empathetic listener, she was a prolific sharer. Once, when I flew in for …Read More

Yellow Skies and Devil’s Oven

August 2, 2022 by - 2 Comments

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning. At our house, we’ve added a half-serious, half-ridiculous line to the saying: Yellow sky, prepare to die. Pretty extreme, yes. It comes from my growing up in tornado-prone landscapes. The pre-tornado skies usually progressed from rainy, to cloudy and still, to yellow, and …Read More

Dreams Like Spider Webs

July 11, 2022 by - 6 Comments

  A Little Flutter for BLISS HOUSE– Read this part first, and today, okay?       For the past few days, BLISS HOUSE, the first book in my haunted house gothic series, has been free on Kindle. I’m over the moon that nearly 2000 new readers have downloaded it! Seriously, I’m ridiculously excited. CHARLOTTE’S …Read More

Hello, Laura here!

June 28, 2022 by - 10 Comments

    It’s been so long since I’ve been in touch, I imagine that I should write you a letter like the ones people send at holidays: “And here we are in Santorini! Harald is no longer a guest of Her Majesty, so we kept the champagne flowing the entire trip. Doesn’t he look wonderful? …Read More

Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

March 28, 2021 by - 7 Comments

An aphorism that came to my mind today was, “Don’t sacrifice the good for the perfect.” I looked it up, and found that it’s a riff on a quote oft attributed to Voltaire (I haven’t even read Candide–bucket list perhaps). “The best is the enemy of the good,” is actually an Italian proverb. I honor …Read More

November in Southern Illinois

November 10, 2020 by - 4 Comments

November. I love November, particularly this time between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Autumn is in full force, and around here the leaves are glorious. Anyone can take good photos this time of year in Southern Illinois. All you have to do is point and shoot. Scouty is happy to be part of the scenery.  

On The Porch and a Killer Review

September 28, 2020 by - 2 Comments

      Finally. It’s officially fall. Or autumn. I like the sound of autumn, though I feel like a pretentious twit when I use the word instead of fall. I read once that you should do your major spring cleaning in fall, instead of in spring. The logic is that your house is full …Read More

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