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 …
The contradiction of spring
Without a doubt, my favorite season is spring. After a cold and often dank winter, spring begins to tease in February by giving us a significant warming spell. When we kept a garden, this was the time to get early peas in the ground, so that we could be enjoying them by early summer. It …
A hoarder’s cluttered room …
Writing is a study in precision and nowhere is this more important than in the details that swarm around a good story. Details are like the last coats of paint on a new house, the finely sewn collar on a shirt or blouse, the delicate fondant icing on a wedding cake. They must be just right. …
