Are we all so caught up in mobocracy we can’t change course? Is hatred really so much fun?
Archive | Musings
Democracy in America
I’ve always been fascinated by America, the American experiment, the American experience. In college, I found my place in the sociology, anthropology, political science and literature of the American people, their values and ideals. My novels are born of the culture of merging, conflicting cultures we, as Americans, were born into and from my conviction […]
Illumination Night: Love and Redemption in the Hands of a Master Storyteller
We enter Alice Hoffman’s Illumination Night through the eyes of Simon, stretching to gaze out of his window on a hot summer morning. Simple details give us Simon’s four-year-old world—his room, his mother in the kitchen, his father out […]
Another Tale for Today
Browsing through my notes, I came across this dialogue exercise I wrote for a class many years ago. It’s not nearly the level of Tony Fuhrman’s poem, but it seems singularly appropriate to the level of social and political scene today. […]
Holiday Wishes
Wishing you a peaceful holiday and a New Year with lots of reading time!
Race in America: Stuck in a Rut
I watch the Ferguson protests and feel very old, very frustrated, and very discouraged. I watched the same explosions and protests in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The same explosion of despair and rage, the same fear and panic, the same, the same, the same. A lot has changed. Huge numbers of […]
Election Day: a New Story?
This week we voted. Not really. Washington State now has mail in- ballots, so the sense of community action is lost—among other things. I found the picture above, labeled, “Presidential Election, 2016,” in the midst of hundreds exploding in the red, white, and blue celebration of the day. Grim and gray, it expressed […]
Back to Reading
My apologies to anyone trying to read my blog in the last couple of weeks. We were having technical difficulties and it took a while to solve them. Also, I’ve been off to writer conventions—The Pacific Northwest Writers Association in Seattle and the Chanticleer Reviews in Bellingham—getting refueled. My own latest book, Home Fires, was […]
Why Read Book Blogs?
I’m sitting here wondering what to write about for my next blog—and the one after—and the one after that. My brain is in neutral, so I bounce about other people’s blogs hoping to spark a response, or a topic. They say you should pretend you’re at a cocktail party, flitting between groups, picking […]
Race in America—in Fiction
Earlier in this series of blogs, I talked of the rewards of reading novels whose characters are swept up in the crises and “hot topics” of our times. In the discussion, I sympathized with readers who find topics such as the Holocaust and race done to death and given to ideological preaching. I recommended […]
What “Sort of Book” Do You read?
An all to frequent response to my books is, “I don’t usually read that sort of book, but I really got into it.” So what “sort of book” do I write? Stories that sweep you into the life of the characters and move you, change your perceptions or your sense of your own life. But […]
Book Review: The Weird Sisters
As another of a series of reviews on the rewards of reading “reality” or”serious” fiction, let me introduce Eleanor Brown’s New York Times bestseller, The Weird Sisters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “We came home because we were failures.” So Eleanor Brown opens her debut novel of three sisters, born in a college town of a father immersed […]
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