Publishing my debut novel, An Anchor On Her Heart, earlier this summer brought many fun surprises, but this past week I experienced an event I’d never imagined. I participated in an author panel at a Christian bookstore where customers came to purchase books and have them signed by the author. Eight […]
General
One Parade, Two Miracles
Dubbed the oldest and coldest, Springfield Oregon’s Christmas parade, a tradition for more than six decades, almost didn’t happen this year. The event’s coordinator announced mid-October that lack of […]
In Everything, Say Thanks
When the Pilgrims celebrated a harvest festival in 1621, fifty-eight of the original one hundred and two remained alive after surviving that first dreadful winter. Native Americans had come to their rescue earlier that year, helping them grow crops to harvest. A second ship arrived from England, bringing recruits and supplies they desperately needed. That Thanksgiving […]
Reflect with Thanks
Days of rain, accompanied by cold, forced my husband’s decision not to attend this year’s annual Veteran’s Day parade in Albany, a city forty miles north of us. The parade boasts more than two hundred entries and as many as 40,000 spectators, making it the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi. The event […]
Turkey Trotters
Two turkeys moved to our street recently. I’m not talking about nefarious neighbors with questionable pasts, I mean the oversized bird—guts, feathers, and all. I first noticed them in August, strutting side by side down the sidewalk […]
A Place To Shine
My daughter’s company, Critter Corner Cards, released its newest annual calendar this week, Furry Friends. The calendar includes thirteen hand-drawn images of our favorite domestic pets in colorful prism pastels. Unlike something you find at a discount store, where a dozen photographs have been printed a million times, collated […]
Music: God’s Gift
Works by Mozart and Strauss, along with a powerful piano performance by Conrad Tao, impressed the local symphony audience last night at our city’s performing arts center. A new conductor took the podium over the summer and this was the first performance I’d heard since his hiring. Music enchants me. I love to listen […]
When You Win, Win Big
This week I teamed up with forty-five other novelists for a huge giveaway of Sweet & Mild Small Town Contemporary Romances which includes my debut novel, An Anchor On Her Heart, to two lucky participants, Plus a brand new eReader to the grand prize winner. The contest begins Monday, October 16 and runs through the […]
Book Pick–Wilderness Journey
This week a writing friend, Christina Suzann Nelson, offered her first story If We Make It Home to the reading world. I had purchased an advanced copy at a summer conference and have read the work. If you want to sit on the edge of your seat, hyperventilating, this is the book for you. The story […]
Saying Goodbye
Today I attended the funeral of a man I’d never met. His daughter is a fellow author and friend, and has spoken many times of her father. Her praise of him glowed—his kindness, wisdom, and knowledge almost supernatural in the telling. But he was mortal, a great individual who left a legacy of love. He’d […]