For more than a decade I've tinkered with a book. The title has changed. The main characters' names have changed. The plot has changed. But finally, it is finished. Now, at long last, I've published it. And here it is ... FLEURINGALA, a novel that opens in Southwestern Virginia on the cusp of 1940, is …
Deadlines wooshing by …
As an writer, I'm accustomed to deadlines. They are a necessary evil of the publishing business. Usually, I'm fine with deadlines. Actually, I appreciate them. Deadlines help me manage my time and keep me on track. Writing a book is an exercise in determination and patience. To do it right, a writer must allow sufficient …
So I obsess …
Finishing a novel is a challenging task, one I've undertaken during the months of our corporate COVID-19 shutdown. My newest novel, Fleuringala, is now in the hands of my very able graphic designer Stephanie Pierce. She has designed a beautiful cover and, as I write this, she is formatting the interior for me. Writing a …
“Stop. Let me catch up!”
As a child I had a little red tricycle. I loved it. I rode around and around the cup-de-sac on the hilltop where I lived. I tried as hard as I could to keep up with the bigger kids, all on bicycles, but I never could. I remember yelling to them, "Stop. Let me catch …
Change it to paper and ink …
I've spent most of our corporate COVID confinement working through mounds of family history. As the the heir apparent of all things family-related, I have boxes of old letters, charts, ephemera, and photos to sort through. It has been a wonderful adventure. I have learned things about my grandparents that I never knew—that my grandfather …
The real CAIRNAERIE …
Tucked into a grove of centennial oaks atop a rise that is a slight quarter mile off Route 100 in Pulaski County, Virginia, is a beautiful old house. For readers of CAIRNAERIE, it should look very familiar. Chimneys punctuated the steeply pitched slate roof and rose as if large birds were perched atop. Ornate cornices …
In defense of the Xmas letter …
During the holidays, a message from an old friend popped up in my Facebook feed. It read—with a tinge of regret—that because some people had disparaged the annual Christmas letter, she would not send one out this year. Her Facebook message would have to suffice. I felt sad for her and for those who wouldn't …
Late-blooming geniuses
Have you ever known a bonafide genius? Have you ever aspired to be one? I've been reading a book by Malcolm Gladwell—one of the most innovative writers I've ever come across. The book, What the Dog Saw, is a compilation of essays Gladwell wrote for the New Yorker. In one essay, he asks the question of whether prodigy is …
The fight of the murble-bee
Murble: a cross between garble and mumble. As in: "With the covers over her head, she spoke, but her words were murbled." It is not a mistake. It is a new word. It is the sound I heard and the word I wrote. I invented it. Kindle, however, thinks I'm wrong.* In fact, they keep sending …
The persistence of memory
I've spent the past few weeks going through diaries and scrapbooks that my mother left behind. They are humorous, compelling, revealing. I am getting to know her as a teenager, a college student, a young married woman — the person she was before I was born. In assembling her documents and those of dozens of …
