The Triumphant Rise of the Shlumpadinka
Ringing in 2020 felt so exciting before we knew better. A new decade, a blank calendar page—lots of hope and promise ahead. We barely got the champagne flutes washed and put away before COVID consumed our collective consciousness. Our shiny new decade became fraught with bad news. Instead of hope and promise, mysterious illness, economic hardship, civil unrest, and death have punctuated the news cycle for months. To lighten the heavy-duty talk, I’d like to reflect on one of the best things to emerge from this garbage fire of a year. It’s been a personal renaissance for me and has…
Looking Up the Ladder
Nearly five years ago, a debilitating back injury shifted my focus and changed the trajectory of my life. The whole story of my transition from injured runner to aspiring writer is one I still marvel at today. You can read…
That Was a Quite a Trip (Around the Sun)
Today my older daughter asked what I wanted to do about my birthday this year. She and her husband just bought their first home, so she wants to have us over for cake. I hadn’t given it much thought and…
The Best Advice For Dealing with Critics and Naysayers
Being a creative person requires a delicate emotional balancing act. We need a thick enough skin to shake off unconstructive criticism while exercising enough humility to be teachable and moldable. It’s been a long-term project for me to develop this…
Encouragement for the Weary from Literary Greats
So it’s only been three weeks of school, and I’m already overwhelmed as a parent and a teacher. The pandemic continues its disruption to education. I miss my students, friends, and family and just want life to be normal again.…
Unexpected Success is the Best Kind
Success sometimes show up unexpectedly. When it does, it's all the sweeter.
The Fatiguing Nature of Uncertainty
Life has been markedly different for the past six months in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Work, school, shopping, and socializing changed in ways nobody could have anticipated. With these changes comes stress and a looming uneasiness caused by the…
An Interview with Andrea Carmen: Romance with a Brain
In June 2017, I met Andrea Carmen at a writers’ conference. Her gentle, quiet demeanor set me at ease, as it was my first time at such an event. I was thrilled to learn she published a book several years…
Step Back to Move Forward
June 2020 was a super-productive writing month for me. I logged over 10,000 words on my novel manuscript. Feeling energized by the progress, I made an even higher word count goal for July--a crazy big number.
An Interview with Jill Marie Thomas: Writing from Experience
I had the pleasure of meeting Jill Marie Thomas in 2017 on the first night of a writers’ conference in Pennsylvania. As it turns out, our passion for writing was cultivated under difficult circumstances. We marveled at how similar our…
When Life is Done, Light Carries On
This past week brought news of the deaths of two key figures in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Ironically, Rep. John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian both died on July 17th after dedicating their lives to pursuing civil…
