A Touch of Tarragon

Van Gogh on Dickens: "His Figures are Resurrections"

2012-02-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

La Pluie, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

In my last blog I wished that Vincent Van Gogh could have read Dickens. I hadn't thought that was possible given the limited translations of the time. And yet...when I attended the "Van Gogh Up Close" exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week, I learned that the artist indeed had read Dickens, even during his stay at the clinic of Saint-Paul-de-Mausolee in 1889, where he sought comfort for his troubled mind. It was at this time that he painted "Rain," which is heartbreaking in its depiction of how the fields are pelted by the downpour.

I've since learned that Van Gogh had a great respect for the works of Charles Dickens and their focus on the working class. Here he sums it up, in his own words:

There is no writer, in my opinion, who is so much a painter and a black-and-white artist as Dickens. His figures are resurrections.
--Vincent Van Gogh, letter to Anthon G. A. Ridder Van Rappard (March 1883)

My Real Book Share: Doubling Up on Dickens

2012-01-26T09:40:00.000-08:00

Tonight the Colville Branch AAUW will meet for its annual Book Share. We'll exchange recommendations for books we've enjoyed this past year. My list includes Joan Didion's Blue Nights and half a dozen other books I've found engrossing. It concludes with Claire Tomalin's excellent new biography, Charles Dickens: A Life.

After I compiled my list I noticed I'd not included anything by Dickens himself. If there's anybody in the group who is not familiar with Dickens' novels, and I were forced at gunpoint to recommend just one, I'd elect his eighth.

You can win bar bets with this question: what was the full, original title of Charles Dickens' novel, now commonly alluded to as David Copperfield?

Take a deep breath, because you'll need it to repeat the answer:
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)

In the preface to the 1867 Charles Dickens edition, he wrote, "… like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield." It's my favorite, too, and I'm beginning to reread it this year for the Dickens Bicentennial. I've got it on my Kindle, and read a chapter a day. Then I flip over to Dombey and Son, and read a chapter there. These are the two Dickens books currently being discussed on the Yahoo Group, The Inimitable Boz, which I recently joined.

I'm looking forward to attending The Friends of Clark Park's 200th Birthday celebration in Philadelphia on February 5, where actors and musicians will recreate Dickens' world with songs and excerpts from his novels, and will parade to the famous bronze statue, crafted by Frank Elwell in the late nineteenth century, to sing Happy Birthday to The Inimitable.

I'll also be taking in the Free Library of Philadelphia's Rare Book Department. It's home to one of the finest collections of Dickens works in the world, as well as his stuffed pet raven “Grip,” said to be the inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem.

On February 7 I'll be dining in the Azalea Room of the luxurious Omni Hotel at Independence Park, where the Philadelphia Dickens Fellowship will stage a birthday banquet. The Omni is at 4th and Chestnut, the site of the United States Hotel where Dickens stayed in 1842 and where he met with Edgar Allan Poe.

(For those who puzzle over Lewis Carroll's famous unanswered question, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" it wasn't only Poe who wrote on both...so did Dickens in Barnaby Rudge, which Poe reviewed!)

During the week I'll also visit the Philadelphia Art Museum...you may remember its steps from the movie "Rocky." It's featuring an exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's later works. No, the artist and Dickens never met...Van Gogh was just seventeen at the time of Dickens' death. Dickens wasn't widely translated in those days.

It's a shame Vincent couldn't have read David Copperfield. I think it would have given him hope. I know it did me when I first read it at seventeen.

Lunatic Alarm!

2012-01-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997

When I stepped outside to photograph this last night it was just before midnight, right on time. American Indian tribes called this the Full Wolf Moon. Amid the cold and deep snows of mid-winter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. I didn't hear anything ulalating in the surrounding hills of the Colville National Forest last night. Nonetheless, I could understand why any wolf would want to bay a bit...I had to muffle an inclination to do so myself, so stunning was this sight.

I'm inspired to write a story about winter solitude today for a new anthology collection on seasons. So since I was born under the sign of Cancer, I appreciated this information, gleaned from the Cleveland Examiner:

Today’s full moon expresses itself at home through the Goddess moon, a dynamic lunar cycle in the 18th degree of Capricorn and Cancer. This cardinal pair places the spotlight on effective communication, available resources and overall home security with emotions attached of course. Because cycles have a tendency to create déjà vu types of feelings, old familiar experiences may spring up for a little attention and or a lot of attention.

What are your reoccurring themes?

It may have roots in early childhood--during a time when the emergence of the martyr archetype, shifting and evolving in a patriarchal ruled society--dominated plenty home environments, as an intense tug-of-war between the Capricorn sun and Cancer moon suggest, or a home environment that tend to shape and mold emotional buttons to eventually become all too familiar. However this homebound full moon is played out, those with a Cancer moon sign may feel the effects of this full moon cycle, as well those with planets in the 4th house of the moon or sun sign in Capricorn.

It's clear I have to abandon that martyr archetype!

Steaming it Up

2012-01-08T09:19:00.001-08:00

Back in the late '70s and early '80s I held the title of social welfare editor for Uncle Jam, a tabloid published irregularly (whenever we had enough people in one room to do it, publisher Phil Yeh used to claim) via the Cobblestone Gallery, a popular hangout for writers, artists and general societal misfits in Long Beach, CA.

The magazine covered arts, travel, books, health and author interviews, so I was given wide leeway in what I could write about. I mean really wide. My friend Chris Statler and I covered such activities as a Grand Prix wet T-shirt contest, floating in a sensory deprivation tank, and the Beatles tribute band, Rain. I wrote about Jackie Sorenson's aerobic dancing classes, and a Phillip Marlowe tour of downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica sponsored by a San Fernando Valley mystery bookstore. I interviewed the late Alduous Huxley's spouse, Laura, about her Project Caress. I attended novelist Carolyn See's three annual literary conferences at Loyola Marymount and interviewed such writers as Herbert Gold, A. Scott Berg and Alice Adams. I wrote about New Year's Eve in New York City, seeing in the '80s, what we wrongly predicted would be the "New Renaissance." I covered my first trip to England, and seeing the ghost of Dr. Samuel Johnson. I even had a ball writing about how, from a child development stance, balls are the perfect toy choice for toddlers.

Not long ago, Phil resurrected this publication as a glossy full-color quarterly. I'm pleased to have rejoined the crowd, contributing such pieces as how to prepare to attend the University of Cambridge International Summer School, an interview with Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, and, for the 100th issue, online soon, why I love to sip cider in Somerset.

Last night Phil sent me a message on Facebook to let me know that the next Uncle Jam would be devoted to steampunk. Would I be interested in writing about its roots in Victorian literature? You bet. So I'll be revisiting H. G. Wells and Jules Verne...full steam ahead.

Uncle Jam 99 has been posted on line, and UJ100 will be coming soon:

http://issuu.com/wingedtiger/docs/uj99v37

December Doldrums

2011-12-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

Christmas sunrise from Natty and Nami's playground

Each year I vow I'll get a lot of writing done between Christmas and New Year. It seems the perfect time...the shopping, baking, gift wrapping, card writing are all finished. Lots of time to settle down at the keyboard. But somehow I don't seem to do it.

Now it's nearly New Year's Eve, and just like the past two Decembers, I've failed to get much written at all. I blame the cold weather, but I doubt that's the real reason for this odd end-of-the-year inertia. It's not as if I don't have ideas, or that there's no looming deadlines. It's more like a seasonal affective disorder with a touch of attention deficit peppered in for good measure.

I did get the story written about body image and sent it off. But since then, I've been stalled. I've written a dozen openings for my story about my first trip to London and discarded them all. I've rewritten a few orphan stories and submitted them to new venues. I've not been entirely idle. Oh, no. I've cleaned out some writing files, discarded some old call outs for submissions, and even dusted my desk.

Tomorrow's my last chance for the year...I'm going to finish the England story. If I get that done, I'll be ready to greet the new year with renewed vigor. Cheers!

A Taste of Dickens for Christmas and 2012

2011-12-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

I'm planning to start my Dickens Bicentennial celebration on Christmas Eve, even though the official onset isn't until New Year's Day. Charles Dickens, born in Landport, Portsmouth, England, on February 7, 2012, long has been a favorite of mine, and, of course, millions of others.

So next weekend I plan to settle down with some of the movies I've been taping from the Turner Classic Movies wondrous "Dickens in December" series, showing each Monday night. Here's my lineup so far for Christmas weekend:

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935) with Claude Rains.
Oliver Twist (1948) with Alec Guinness.
Nicholas Nickleby (1947) with Cedric Hardwicke.
A Christmas Carol (1938) with Reginald Owen.
A Tale of Two Cities (1958) with Dirk Bogarde.
Little Dorrit (1984) with Alec Guinness.

Maybe I'll accompany this film fest with a little Dickensian punch:

"Punch, my dear Copperfield, like time and tide, waits for no man ... His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning spirit, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of a punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity."--David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

In February I'm going to Philadelphia for the Dickens Fellowship and The Friends of Clark Park celebrations, and will be singing "Happy Birthday" to The Inimitable, as he dubbed himself, at his statue...the only one in the world...in Clark Park.
Then in June I'll be celebrating in London with Road Scholar's "The Best of Times." Kevin Flude, a Dickensian expert, will be leading this tour. Highlights include:

A private viewing and reception at The Charles Dickens Museum, Doughty House.
A pub crawl to Dickens' favorite haunts: The George Inn and the Prospect of Whitby.
An outing to marshy Kent to see Bleak House, Dickens' occasional holiday retreat.
A visit to Little Dorrit's church, St. George the Martyr.
A coach trip to the historic waterfront city of Portsmouth, to the site of Dickens' birth, where now is located the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum.

I'm not a recent convert to Dickens. I've been a follower since I was 17, when I first read David Copperfield. Back in the early '80s I attended one of the University of California Santa Cruz's "Dickens Universe" celebrations, where we discussed Martin Chuzzlewit, the American novel. In August 2010 at the University of Cambridge International Summer School I took a course on "Criminals and Gentlemen in Dickens' Oliver Twist and Great Expectations." I followed up by seeing a staging of Oliver at one of Dickens' favorite theatres, the Drury Lane.
As 2012 progresses, I'll read some of the lesser-known Dickens' works, already downloaded to my Kindle:

The Seven Poor Travellers
Somebody's Luggage
Going into Society
Mugby Junction
The Haunted House
Doctor Marigold

But for this next week, I'm rereading one of the Christmas stories, The Cricket on the Hearth.
And finally in January I'll at long last undertake the legal novel, Bleak House, that I've put off for so long. It's waiting for me on my Kindle, as well.

I'll also be ordering Charles Dickens: A Life, by Claire Tomalin, who wrote the wonderful book on Dickens' mistress, Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.

I'm anticipating that 2012 for me indeed will prove to be "the best of times." It's not only Dicken's bicentennial...it will be my diamond jubilee!

All's Well that Ends Well?

2011-12-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't decided whether I've been afflicted with writer's block or if I'm just a lazy bones. For five days I've been trying to work up energy to write a story about body acceptance for an anthology that's focused on positive attitudes towards weight. Yes, it's a weighty issue, and one that's plagued me since girlhood. I have some strong beliefs, some mixed feelings and, apparently, some weak-willed hesitance about actually getting the piece written.

Every time I sit down at the laptop something else seems to shout out, "Attend to me, first!" Either Natty, my newly diabetic and nearly blind dog, or Harpo, the world's most narcissistic cat, want to go outside. Or come inside.

Or I decide I'd better look at my notes just one more time for facilitating this next Thursday's book group discussion of Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well." Should I bake oatmeal cookies or take the apple gingercake out of the freezer to thaw for our refreshments? Can I buy marzipan in Colville or should I drive to Spokane? After all, everybody in the Elizabethan court gorged on marzipan. Would the group settle for fudge? Weighty and time-consuming decisions.

I glance around the house. Oh, dear. The tiled entryway certainly could stand mopping. Nobody's scrawled "dust me" on the coffee table yet, but anybody could and probably should. Is it time to change my bedding? What about cleaning out those closets? Or can that wait until spring?

Should I take the afternoon off and watch a few more episodes of the BBC mystery series, "Pie in the Sky"? Oh, wait...don't I owe Jim or Annie or Honey an email? Should I write my annual Christmas letter and get it reproduced at the printers? What about addressing the Christmas cards?

Why don't I just park myself at the laptop and write that story? I think I have a title. "Elephants Never Forget."

And while I'm at it...here's a few more stories still waiting to be born:

Black Friday madness in Arizona, for NYMB, "The First Time."
Samuel Johnson's ghost for NYMB, "The First Time."
Auntie Dorothy and the clergyman, for NYMB, "Sharing Secrets."
My search for assistance from St. Teresa on Seychelle's La Digue island, for an anthology about sacred or secular pilgrimages.
A senior high school year, joining my mom with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Staying at the YWCA in Chicago, 1957, for Midwest Stories anthology which tentatively is titled, "Sowing Wild Oats."

I'm heading for the laptop...I'm going to get the introductory paragraphs written on that fierce fatty tale this afternoon...and finish it and send it off tomorrow. I'm already a week late, so I owe the publisher!

Maybe it's neither laziness nor a block of any kind...maybe it's ambivalence about the topic. Do I really feel it's all right to be flabulously fat? I'll know when I write the piece. It may not make it into the book, but at least I get to express myself on a topic that's still weighing on my mind. So to speak.

Hmmmm. Shakespeare. I wonder if the good Bard of Avon ever found himself struggling with writer's block...and then I remembered his "lost years," those seven years between the birth of his twins and his emergence in the London theater scene. He may have been employed as a teacher or tutor, and lost himself in reading the Decameron...or he may have been simply stargazing. He might even have been a lazy bones, and made up for it in later years. Nobody knows.

I'm heading for the laptop...just as soon as I let Natty back in.

Not Your Mother's Book...On Sharing Secrets, and The First Time

2011-11-21T08:24:00.000-08:00

It's no secret...I've become a "co-creator." For somebody who thinks "author" is a bit grandiose, I'm not certain how I feel about billing myself as such, but like it or not, that's my new title. So far in my literary career, I've been a writer, a journalist, a reporter, an editor, a teacher, a mentor, a coach, and a contributor. Now, however, I find myself elevated to a loftier status...co-creator.

I'm partnering with Dahlynn and Ken McKowen of Publishing Syndicate on two books in the new series, Not Your Mother's Book. My titles are "Sharing Secrets" and "The First Time." I've yet to write my own contributions for the pair...but have stories in mind.

The story submission guidelines for these books, as well as twenty-six other titles in the series, can be found here:

http://publishingsyndicate.com/publishing_syndicate/submissions/nymb_submit_guidelines.html

Here's some tips on putting together your stories for this new collection, courtesy of Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, who will be compiling My Story is Out, another Publishing Syndicate enterprise.
Not Your Mother's Book:

Do's and Don'ts

Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone knows how to write good story. Use the following Do’s and Don’ts to help you organize your thoughts and create the perfect story for anthology submissions.

Do make sure that your story is original, honest and a true account of real-life events.
Don’t write a fictional story.

Do try and explain what lesson you learned, if any, from your experience by weaving it into the story itself.
Don’t be preachy or judgmental—it’s the quickest way for your lesson to get lost in the mix.

Do mention real people that are relevant to the story.
Don’t mention your friend’s names just for fun or make up fictional characters.

Do address important social issues if they apply to you and your experience.
Don’t write a speech about political incorrectness or rants about inequality.

Do make sure your story is properly organized and that it has a beginning, middle and end.
Don’t ramble on without any structure or direction. The reader will lose interest.

Do write your story in the first person. (“I rode the bus to school.”)
Don’t write your story in the third person. (“She rode the bus to school.”)

Do write about your personal experience, whether it is a wonderful, courageous, difficult, joyful, funny or extraordinary situation.
Don’t focus on dark and depressing stories with agonizing outcomes. Even the most difficult situations can have a positive impact.

Do read through and edit your story before submitting it. It also helps to have someone else look at it and provide feedback as well.
Don’t submit your story without rereading it or checking it for errors.

Do try your hardest to create the best story you can.
Don’t give up if your story is not selected. It may not fit with this particular book, but might be a great fit for an upcoming book instead.

I look forward to reading your stories soon...don't be afraid to share your secrets.

"Getting the Words Right"...Ernest Hemingway

2011-11-08T09:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I learned that a story I'd had high hopes for, "Fun and Games," didn't make the final rounds for an anthology I'd hoped to be published in. Downcast at first, I reminded myself that there's reasons for rejection. I reviewed the tale. I found it fresh, funny and heartwarming. Then I realized that the book I'd submitted it to might be meant as something you'd buy for a bride, a newlywed, or for somebody celebrating an anniversary. In that context, my story wouldn't have been particularly uplifting...since I was reflecting on my relationship with my deceased spouse.

If I'd not been so enamored with my basic thesis, and had put this story away for a week or two, in revisiting it, I'd have realized it needed reworking for this particular market, or, better yet, that I should consider sending it elsewhere.

I won't give up easily on this story...I'm certain there's a home for it somewhere. But I remembered a valuable lesson I'd learned a long while ago. Never forget the reader over your shoulder. Will this sentence be clear to the reader? Will that reader find the prose harsh or harmonic? Will that reader understand the message you thought you'd sent?

This week I'm editing a novel aimed for the Young Adult market. The manuscript boasts some well-developed characters, a compelling plot, and some superb commentary on the meaning of poetry. But it's also cluttered with some clunky and confusing prose. I find myself making endless revisions, mostly minor deletions and insertions...all for the sake of that mysterious specter lurking in the background...the reader!

When I was an English major back in the early '60s, a professor recommended a book by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Reader over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose. Hands down, it's the best book I ever read on how to revise. It emphasizes clarity and consistency, and better yet, shows its readers how to achieve these ends.

I used this book when I taught high school English and journalism back in the early '60s. I recommend it today...and, amazingly, over fifty years later, this remarkable guide to good writing continues to be still available on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Reader-over-Your-Shoulder-Handbook/dp/0394506154

One Amazon reviewer who calls himself Irritated, and who likely teaches English composition, says this:

"If your students refuse to learn how important it is to focus on INDIVIDUAL WORDS-- if they insist on thinking that it is sufficient to 'get their point across in a rough way'-- if their sentences are as a result sometimes nonsensical, suggest this book. And then make them read it-- including the appendix at the back.

"Among other valuable aspects, the book uses examples of bad writing from famous authors-- simultaneously reassuring the student that a mistake can happen to the best of us, and reminding the student that vigilance is always necessary."

Here's validation on the reason to revise from George Plimpton's The Paris Review interview with Ernest Hemingway:

INTERVIEWER

Do you do any rewriting as you read up to the place you left off the day before? Or does that come later, when the whole is finished?

HEMINGWAY

I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You’re grateful for these different chances.

INTERVIEWER

How much rewriting do you do?

HEMINGWAY

It depends. I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

INTERVIEWER

Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

HEMINGWAY

Getting the words right.

Veteran's Day Tribute for 11/11/11

2011-10-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Half a dozen years ago when I began to write my memoirs in the form of narrative essays, I'd not realized how my early childhood experiences actually had shaped my eventual life's journey. In writing my story, "Daddy and Raggedy Ann," which appears in this new book about the home front, I became increasingly aware that even fleeting encounters...half an hour at a sick child's bedside, for example...can have everlasting repercussions.

This Veteran's Day I'll be thinking of my father, Albert George Burgess, and how he tap danced his way into my little girl's heart and across the South Pacific during World War II.

This book now is available from Amazon.com.

FIGHTING FEAR: WINNING THE WAR AT HOME

When Your Soldier Leaves for Battle

GREENVILLE, South Carolina – November 11, 2011 – When soldiers go off to war, they leave behind family and friends who are fearful for their safety. Kurt Hartley, Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and now Baptist minister, says, “I can still remember the anxiety and fear that rushed through our family during my deployment.” Those left behind have their own battles to fight after those gut-wrenching goodbyes, but where do they go for help? Edie Melson’s newest book, Fighting Fear: Winning the War at Home When Your Soldier Leaves for Battle, addresses these concerns. This devotional is not just for military families, but also for anyone who knows a soldier or veteran. “As a combat veteran and now minister,” Hartley says, “I was captivated by the premise of this book.”

Author Edie Melson says, “I remember our son’s first deployment, especially what it was like to say goodbye to my oldest son as he left for Iraq. Throughout the last couple of days, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Was this the last time I’d eat supper with him? The last picture I’d have of him? The last time I’d ever see him smile?”

Melson has collected encouraging stories from people who have sent loved ones off to war, from WWII to the current Afghanistan conflict. They share their stories of how they’ve dealt with the fear. Interspersed are devotions written by Melson that strengthen and enlighten the reader. She begins by sharing what it was like watching her son get ready for his first deployment and compares that to putting on the full armor of God. Cecil Stokes, award winning producer says, “Sometimes I forgot if Melson was talking about the physical war we are fighting or the spiritual one. This book folds between the two effortlessly.” Jeff Strueker, a Black Hawk Down Veteran says, “Melson gives readers a rare glimpse into the raw, intense emotions that military families go through when warriors are away serving our nation.”

Hartley says, “Many days, I prayed that the Spirit would comfort my wife, children, mother, and friends, as I walked ‘through the valley of the shadow of death.’ I was confident in my training, but never found the right truth from God’s Word to comfort those who were praying for me...Until now. Fighting Fear: Winning the War at Home is just the kind of tool that the Spirit can use to comfort those who are batting to stay strong during their own time of adversity.”

Deborah Raney, author of the Hanover Falls novels and A Vow to Cherish, says, “This book...helped me understand the emotions my brother and sister-in-law were experiencing when my Marine nephew left for Iraq. What a great resource this book would have been for all of our extended family.”

As former missionary to Russia and award-winning writer Susan May Warren says, “The essential weapon of faith for the families of soldiers fighting the war at home. Edie Melson writes with the compassion, depth and poignancy to make this devotional a fixture on the bedside stand of anyone whose loved one is deployed. Deeply touching, empowering and healing, it guides readers to the Hand that will hold and strengthen them during this challenging season.”

Fighting Fear: Winning the War at Home will be released by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas on Veterans Day, Friday, November 11, 2011. It will be available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble online, as well as in local books stores.

Edie and her publisher are also excited to announce that a portion of the proceeds from every book sold will be donated to the troops, through Blue Star Mothers of America.

Edie Melson is a prolific writer, publishing over 700 articles in 2010, and the author of the bestselling eBook, Social Marketing for Writers. Her heart to help others define and reach their dreams has connected her with writers all over the country. She’s the co-director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference and Southwest Christian Writers Studio, in addition to serving as a popular faculty member at numerous others.

For more information visit: www.WinningTheWarAtHome.com

Autumn Update

2011-10-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

Me with son, Steve, Orange, CA, 10/23/11

When I'm stuck on a story, I bless my blog...I can always come here to exercise my fingers until my brain shifts back into its writing gear!

I've been so overwhelmed by medical issues this past week...mine with my disintegrating spinal discs and my canine companion Natty's with diabetes and an abscessed paw...that I haven't taken a deep breath and counted my blessings. So it's time to enumerate them right now!

My cultural immersion in Southern California replenished my spirits! Highlights included taking in a new staging of "The Trip to Bountiful" and the breathtaking show-stealing airborne pyrotechnics of the Bolshoi Ballet's Ivan Vasiliev in "The Kings of the Dance,"as well as sampling fried chicken at Mrs. Knott's 1934 restaurant and hiking around South Coast Botanical Gardens on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
My brother Joel and my friend Chris both are recovering well from cancer treatment!
My MRI, xray and ultra sounds didn't reveal any horrendous surprises, other than the $1000 that my insurance doesn't cover.
Most of the snags with the upcoming November 12 AAUW Coffeehouse musical extravaganza have been ironed out.
Tomorrow I'll lunch with friend Nancy and then see the classic British farce, "See How They Run," at Kettle Falls' Woodland Theater.
I've finished rereading The Great Gatsby for Chewelah book group, meeting at my house Thursday.
It's not snowing here yet, as it is in Colorado Springs where two of my stepsons and families live...and the other one is visiting with his.
Chicken Soup for the Soul's picked up three of my stories as finalists: "The Unforgotten" for Messages from Heaven, "Twist and Shout" for Say Goodbye to Back Pain, and "Running Like Sixty" for Say Hello to a Better Body.

California Dreaming

2011-10-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Good news from Chicken Soup for the Soul while I'm on vacation. Two of my stories, "Twist and Shout" and "Running Like Sixty" are finalists for two books in the new health and wellness series with Harvard Medical School. The first will appear in Say Goodbye to Back Pain and the second in Say Hello to a Better Body.

I also submitted stories to a couple of other titles, but haven't heard yet if they've been picked for Think Positive for Good Health or How to Build Your Brain Power.

When I return to my regular schedule next week, I have more tales in mind:

Tsunami's mischief in her puppyhood
Facebook and the joys of reconnecting
Keeping old friends while making new ones
More ruminations on Charles Dickens
The first time I saw a ghost
The hardest secret I had to keep

But this week I'm not writing. Instead I'm hanging out with old friends, revisited Knott's Berry Farm...after forty years, and walked the tram road at South Coast Botanical Gardens. This weekend I'll see a new version of A Trip to Bountiful and go to the Orange County Center for Performing Arts for The Kings of the Dance. It's always wonderful to play tourist in the area where I grew up.

The Home Front, Patterns and Daffodils

2011-10-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

World War II may seem shrouded in the mists of time to some these days, but I well remember its onset and its conclusion. At age four and a half I huddled with the rest of the family by the Philco to listen to FDR tell the nation of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Later I cheered as the bells of the Friends Church in Scotts Mills, OR, tolled victory on V-E Day, May 8, 1945.

My father, Albert George Burgess, served as the oldest enlisted man on the USS Foote during this period. I've written two stories about him and his service to our country. One, "Foote Notes from My Father," appears in the recently published Silver Boomer Book, The Harsh and The Heart. It's about my dad telling me why he chose to join the Navy at an age when he would have been overlooked by the draft.

The story that appears in Fighting the Fear, to be published on Veteran's Day, November 11, 2011, concerns my dad's visit to me at Children's Hospital in 1941, where I'd been hospitalized with double pneumonia, when penicillin was not available on the home front. It's also about hope. It's called "Daddy and Raggedy Ann."

I've been spared from the tragedy of losing a loved one to war. My dad survived his duty stint. So did my first and second husbands, who both served during the Korean conflict before I met them.

One of my favorite poets, Amy Lowell, wasn't so fortunate. I admired her poem, "Patterns," so much I once named a program for women recovering from dual addictions after it. This poem commemorated the death of her fiance in WWI...and it's worth reading to the end.

Patterns

Amy Lowell

I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon --
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?

From Men, Women and Ghosts By Amy Lowell

I hope all my friends who have a loved one overseas find comfort from Fighting Fear. And from the hope that daffodils bring us each spring...for peace on earth.

Here's the link to the Fighting Fear website with more information:

http://www.winningthewarathome.blogspot.com/

Rejection, Dejection, Perfection!

2011-09-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of writer friends long ago told me that if they'd been rejected when they sent out their first story, they would have been too discouraged to continue to submit. I mentioned this to a realtor friend who started to laugh. He said, "That's ridiculous. I get turned down every day. But if I stopped showing houses, I'd never make a sale. You just smile and move on to the next potential customer."

I remember, too, my late husband's favorite motto, "Never, ever give up."

So I keep a little orphanage in my stories file. Here's where all my poor rejects dwell. Periodically I see a call out that reminds me of a story that's languished in the orphanage for years. That's what happened when I saw that the Writers Abroad group of ex-pats and ex-ex-pats planned an anthology based on a theme of food, drink and cooking from all over the world.

When I lived in Guatemala back in 1990 to 1992 I'd written a story, "The Marvelous Mexican Parsley of West 59th Street." I'd sent it out to some publications at that time, but it never got accepted. A few years ago I resurrected it and sent it out two or three times again. It didn't seem quite right, apparently, for some of the food-related collections I'd hoped would adopt it.

Then this morning I surfed through my junk mail and found a congratulatory note from Writers Abroad that says my piece will appear later this year in Foreign Flavours.

My story actually takes place back in the early '50s in a southwest Los Angeles neighborhood when a neighbor sent us some specially-seasoned chicken soup when everybody in our family had the mumps. I remembered the incident one evening when my old friend and roommate, Kelly Presley, and I returned from an evening at one of our favorite Antigua eateries where we'd feasted on caldo de real. I'd recounted the incident from my childhood and Kelly urged me to write about it.

Kelly died a few years back, so I'm disappointed I can't share my good news with him, that this story about cilantro, the popular Mexican herb, finally will see print! I'm delighted that my orphan finally got adopted. Kelly would have been, too. A talented writer, he continued to revise his three unpublished novels until he got too sick to sit long at the computer.

So, Kelly, this story is dedicated to you.

Time Capsules and Treasure Troves

2011-09-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

In 1987 before I left Long Beach, CA, to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, I gave away most of my library, except for autographed books. I emptied out drawers, cupboards, and closets, destroyed old financial records, and stashed what I couldn't bear to part with in a filing cabinet and a few cardboard boxes, which I left with my son, Steve, thinking I'd retrieve it all when I returned home in a couple of years.

As it turned out, I didn't go home to Southern California, after all. Instead, I lived overseas for ten years, in Belize, Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Seychelles. When I came back to the States in 1998 I worked first in Little Rock, AR, and later in Washington DC. Finally I retired to the country near Colville, WA, in 2004.

Over the years I've visited Steve many times, and always remembered the stash in his garage. Finally, last October I located some of the things I'd wanted to keep, repacked three post office priority mail boxes full, and mailed them to myself. When they arrived, I stuffed them in a closet, promising myself I'd sort through them soon.

Soon doesn't always mean tomorrow. With obligations, deadlines, boards and commissions, three cats, two dogs and three and a half acres to look after, sometimes rummaging through boxes doesn't get to the top of my priority list.

It finally did today. I intend to write about my long love affair with London. Back in 1980 when I'd visited England for the first time, I wrote a piece, "Literary London and the English Countryside," that artist and Uncle Jam publisher Phillip Yeh beautifully illustrated. I thought I'd find it in those boxes in the closet. I didn't. Instead I found:

the October 1967 copy of Woman's Day, with my short piece "Rabbit Habit" in the Neighbors column...bylined Mrs. Robert L. Elders...as was fashionable in those days.
a framed check for $25, payment for the above article, the first piece of writing I ever sold to a national publication.
an essay, "Fitzgerald and the Plight of the South," about F. Scott Fitzgerald's haunting short story, "The Last of the Belles," submitted on May 20, 1963, with a note from my Modern American Lit prof that says, "This is an excellent explication of the story, and rings quite true. If I were you I should certainlly send this out," with a list of possible literary quarterlies, now long out of business.
a dozen novels by Herbert Gold, with his autograph.
a copy of Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, together in one volume, autographed to me by Laura Huxley and dated Nov. '79, "For Terri, from her admirer, affectionately, Laura." I'd written an article about Laura and her Project Caress earlier that year for Uncle Jam, after I'd visited her at her home just below the Hollywood sign, and spilled coffee on her white living room carpet.
several autographed books by authors I'd interviewed in 1980, including Julia Braun Kessler and Herbert Cohen.
poems and short stories and about fifty pages of a novel I'd written for a 1961 creative writing class...some I don't remember writing at all.
a newspaper clipping of an interview with me when I was teaching journalism at Jordan High School, 1964.
copies of newspapers and magazines that had published the articles I wrote while I lived in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic from 1990 t0 1994...Transitions Abroad, Mature Living, International Living and the Costa Rica Times.

I'll have to go through the boxes again. I really need to recover that London article. If I can't find it I probably can recapture much of it, since my memory of that first trip to Europe remains fresh in my mind.

But it's hard to just plow through these boxes without getting sidetracked. I spent a good fifteen minutes rereading a paper I'd titled, "Structure and Meaning in 'Cliff Klingenhagen'." It's not dated, but it must be circa 1962. It still strikes me as a perceptive analysis of a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, from Tilbury Town, which I'd long forgotten.

And even though I'm nearly fifty years late, I still think that analysis of the Fitzgerald short story needs to be published. Dr. Hugh Smith noted that there were some irregularities in diction and construction that needed to be cleared up, and a couple of lines that needed rephrasing. That would be a daunting task to type a fresh copy on my old Smith Corona portable. On my Toshiba laptop it should be a snap.

I'm gonna do it...soon.

Proud To Be a Public Servant

2011-09-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

Governor Chris Gregoire

In July 2006 Governor Chris Gregoire appointed me as a public member to the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission. As a member of MQAC, I'm also a part time employee of the Department of Health, hence a government employee once again.

My first husband, a career police officer, used to say his entire family "fed at the public trough." His parents were nurses at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, CA for over 30 years each. He himself retired after 35 years of service with the Long Beach Police Department.

First as a school teacher, and then as a social worker, I worked for municipal governments, the city of Long Beach, CA, and the county of Los Angeles. As a Peace Corps Volunteer and Peace Corps health specialist at The Center for Field Assistance in Washington DC, I worked for the federal government. As adolescent and school health coordinator I worked for the Arkansas State Department of Health. Now I'm an employee of the Washington State Department of Health.

So when people rant about fat cat bureaucrats, well, I've fed at the public trough much of my life, on the home front and overseas, here, there and everywhere. I've never become rich, but I've always earned a living...and some of those earnings, in Peace Corps and AmeriCorps*VISTA, were well below the federal minimum wage. Nonetheless, I've tried my best to earn every cent, whatever my salary was, and have always remembered my real employer was not a fellow bureaucrat, but my fellow taxpayers, citizens just like me.

Today, as a state employee, I received a thoughtful thank you from Governor Gregoire which I'd like to share. It brings back my feeling of pride over a lifetime of community service, and gratitude for having had the opportunity to serve. Here's the note that Chris Gregoire sent to all Washington State employees.

Dear Colleague:

We all stood still on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 — 10 years ago this Sunday. In many ways we’re still catching our breath.

We awakened Sept. 12 somber and scared. Yet we also awakened to a new calling. We rose to a greater good, we vowed to rebuild New York, we pledged to travel again. We stuck together and felt closer than perhaps any other time in recent history. Countries around the globe rushed to our side as the world shared in our loss. For some, that newfound feeling of commitment and purpose changed over time. We settled back into our old habits, our old prejudices. The cloud of two wars, the ever-changing presentation of facts to the American public, the use of 9-11 for political gain changed what that day meant and what it should mean.

Today, 10 years later, we can change it back.

First, realize that the world is a much different place than it was. The nature of global threats, both natural and human caused, has intensified. Our best response lies in preparation. In the event of a large- scale emergency, it’s important to prepare yourself and your family to survive unassisted for 72 hours. While governments work hard to mobilize in advance of and during disasters, the events of 9-11, the Japanese tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and recently, Hurricane Irene have proven that the more prepared you and your family are, the more quickly recovery will take hold.

Second, know the neighbors in your area who may need help or special assistance during and after a disaster. An elderly person or the family with small kids may require checking in on or a little extra help.

Third, become involved in your community. Give back to local organizations, read at a school, organize a neighborhood event. Explore another culture, introduce yourself to a stranger. Realize that our strength lies in our diversity. Remember that feeling of civic responsibility you had 10 years ago — wondering what you could do to help your fellow Americans 3,000 miles away — and act on that now. The stronger your resolve, the stronger our communities become.

Finally, to repeat a simple message shared by our federal counterparts, “If you see something, say something.”

As state employees, each of you plays an important role in assuring the safety and security of our citizens: from the Department of Health, where we have stepped up monitoring and tracking of potential health hazards, to the Military Department, which has admirably served overseas as well as provided homeland security and domestic preparedness on the home front, to the State Patrol, which monitors our highways and ferries. The collective work and collaboration of every agency has not gone unnoticed in the past decade.

Our nation’s biggest weakness lies not in what the terrorists can do to us or what the economic markets may bear, but in our increasing divisiveness, lack of civics and general isolation. Today, take a moment to remember those who perished 10 years ago. Be proud of our country, and be just as proud of your neighborhood, your community and your service to the state.

Thank you for that service.

Sincerely,
Chris

Remembering September 11, 2001

2011-09-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

Suds and Solace

By Terri Elders

On September 11, 2001, I had just opened an HIV/AIDS seminar for Peace Corps Volunteers in a shabby hotel two hours north of Port-au-Prince. We paused that morning to stare in silence at a generator-powered television set in the adjacent bar, tears trickling down our cheeks. Several of us joined hands and whispered The Lord’s Prayer. The Haitian counterparts would be arriving the next morning, many walking miles across rugged rural terrain to bus stops. We prayed for strength to get us through the week.

Incredibly, the training went forward without mishaps, and US Embassy and Peace Corps managed to get me aboard my scheduled return flight to Miami the following Sunday. Even more improbably, American Airlines had rerouted an extra flight to Dulles, given that Reagan National, my destination, was closed for the duration. They assigned me the one remaining seat left on it.

As soon as the taxi dropped me off in Silver Spring, my husband and I hugged, shared our concerns about the safety of our nation, and then addressed an immediate question. Should we or shouldn’t we cancel our postponed honeymoon?

In our sixties, we had a millennial wedding the previous summer, but since I had to begin immediately my new job in Washington DC, we waited to schedule a honeymoon until I accrued vacation time. When I asked Ken where he’d like to go, he chose Germany. He pined to revisit the towns he’d lived in during his Air Force service in the ‘50s, and wanted to take in one more Oktoberfest.

“This would be my fourth, and the best, since you’ll be with me. And I want you to learn to love German beer, just as I do.”

Never much of a beer drinker, nonetheless I had agreed.

But now I hesitated. We were scheduled to fly out on September 22. Would we be safe? Would we be foolhardy to travel at such an uncertain time? On the plus side: our rental car would be waiting at Franz Joseph airport in Munich, and Ken remembered enough German to ask for directions as we headed for Neuweire, the Black Forest, Meersburg, Garmisch and all those other magical-sounding towns I’d heard Ken describe. On the minus side: new travel regulations were in effect and airport security lines would be long and arduous.

“Let’s do it,” Ken finally said. “We’d probably be safer in Germany right now than we are right here in the outskirts of the capital. Plus you’ve been working hard, and really deserve a break.”

So we went. And on October 1 we finally settled in at Oktoberfest’s Hofbrau Haus, socializing with young people from New Zealand and Australia, raising our litre mugs as we sang along with a brass band that pounded out “Stop in the Name of Love” and “Roll Out the Barrel.” We ate salted radishes and pretzels as big as our heads, and toasted every English-speaking nation on earth, including Belize, Guyana and Seychelles, countries that would have gone overlooked if I hadn’t a personal Peace Corps knowledge of them. Then the Aussies and Kiwis joined us in a chorus of “Blame Canada” when a trio from Ottawa asked to sit with us.

Ken and I listened appreciatively as our new friends poured out their sympathy for our country, and accepted their gracious good wishes for a safe return home. We left Oktoberfest carefree, flushed with lager and love.

A few days later, though, we learned that the United States had begun to bomb Afghanistan, and that all American citizens abroad had been warned to contact American embassies and consulates. We heard talk of terrorist attacks against tourists in European countries. I began to shiver.

“Should we try to return home early?” I asked my husband.

“I don’t want to leave Germany until you’ve seen Andechs,” Ken replied, shaking his head.

As he explained it, Andechs Abbey, just an hour south of Munich, is a Benedictine monastery housed in a castle that dates from the twelfth century. Its brewery or kosterbrauerei, produces lagers with an alcohol percentage ranging between 11.5 and 18.5, some as strong as fortified sherries.

“We need to sit in the beer garden, have a basket of the fresh-baked dark rye bread and monastery cheese, and heft a beer and contemplate the frescoes and stuccoes. We’ll get some perspective on historical awareness at Andechs,” he insisted.

We drove along the eastern shore of Lake Ammersee until we spotted the castle looming on a hill. For more than half a millennium it had been a cherished destination for pilgrims, and now as we headed up the hill that frosty morning I felt as if we, too, were on a pilgrimage.

The beer proved just as delicious as Ken had promised. Then after lunch, we toured the ground floor of the church and I sat for a while in the Chapel of Sorrow, praying for the United States, for Washington DC, and for our marriage. I especially prayed for a sense of serenity. As soon as I asked the Lord to instill peace in my heart, I felt an enormous sense of relief. The fear had vanished.

This chapel, originally consecrated in 1470, houses the grave of Carl Orff, the 20^th century composer of “Carmina Burana.” Then we crossed to the St. Anthony Chapel, with frescoes by 17^th century artists. I reflected on how past and present seem to come together at Andechs. As we prepared to leave I picked up a brochure that quoted the Andechs’ Abbot, Dr. Johannes Eckert, on the purpose of the monastery. One phrase hit a chord: “to relish the present and the moments which go by so quickly, yet indeed not forgetting that which went on before.” Exactly what I had been thinking.

Then I remembered that September day in Haiti, when we all decided to move forward, to avoid becoming paralyzed with fear. As we strolled to our rental car I turned to Ken. “In the chapel I asked the Lord for help in giving up fear,” I said. “There’s no room for it on our honeymoon. My prayer seems to have been answered. I feel more peaceful now.”

“Good decision,” he replied. Then he grinned. “But don’t ask Him to make us give up German beer.”

I agreed that I wouldn’t. Suds and solace seemed perfect mates. Just like us.

(This story appears in The Harsh and The Heart: Celebrating the Military, available now.)

http://silverboomerbooks.com/h-h-authors.html

The Great Who-Nami

2011-09-03T16:26:00.001-07:00

Last November Marlene Moore Gordon published a story I'd written about my Akita, Tsunami, and the amazing escape-artist tricks she played on us when she was a puppy. At that time I couldn't find any of her puppy pictures. Recently my stepson, Rick, located the photo that my late husband took of her at ten weeks, just after she'd turned the backyard of our Silver Spring townhouse into a lunar landscape. Here she is with her "best friend," a stuffed toy she carried everywhere. Rick had a mouse pad made from it.

Nami will be nine on September 24. To celebrate I'm going to try to get a new mouse pad made from the photo, since my old one has faded over the years. Nami's mellowed, but not faded. She's as radiant as ever. Please check out my story, "The Great Who-Nami" at HandPrints on My Heart...and give it a comment and vote. Marlene's blog promises something new to feel good about everyday. And who doesn't need that?

I have two other stories on that blog that you could comment on, as well, "Light of My Life" and "Pop's Old Pedestal Desk."

Wishing everybody a glorious labor-free Labor Day!

http://blog.handprintsonmyheart.com/2010/11/07/the-great-who-nami/

Arrested Development

2011-09-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

I love Pinchback Press, and the chance to cross over to the dark side. As much as I enjoy writing inspirational stories for series such as Chicken Soup for the Soul and Cup of Comfort, there's been some not-quite-glorious episodes in my life as well. So Pinchback gives me a chance to clean out some cobwebs. Tarnished, which appeared a couple of months ago, carried my story, "A Pair to Draw To," about my parents' best friends, people who led lives of deceit.

Now Pinchback has a call out for a new book that really appeals to me. When I worked as a psychotherapist I learned everybody had secrets. I'm not certain everybody's committed a crime, but I suspect from listening to people share their fears that most of us have nudged the letter of the law a time or two. I just finished reading Ghostwalk, a mystery set in Cambridge, that reveals that even Isaac Newton kept a list of dozens of sins, written in code because of his shame. He never got arrested, though. But I did. So I've got a tale to tell for Pinchback's new title.

Caught: True Crime Tales of Scamming, Scheming & Sliding By

Deadline: October 31, 2011

Whether you’ve stolen, conned, lied, or cheated here is your chance to come clean. Tell us about the times you’ve ripped someone off, the five finger discounts you’ve taken, the little white lies you’ve told. Confession is good for the soul and we want to hear every crafty detail of yours. Tell us the tactless, the tricky and the downright terrible and we may want to publish it.

We are interested in unique personal essays that will disgust and delight readers. We want to hear from everyone, from petty criminals to hardened cons. Submissions might play with the nurture vs. nature theme, could be mastermind masterpieces, or may even be ‘anti’ crime; the collection as whole will evoke strong emotion and stand out in this popular genre.

Guidelines
All essays should be nonfiction narratives, written in the first-person. Focus on one or a few selected events; do not send rants or political speeches. Stories should be titled. Essays should be between 1000 – 5000 words, double-spaced, paginated and word-processed. No funky fonts, please.

Please include a brief bio (1-3 sentences) at the end of your submission.

Deadline: October 31, 2011
Please send your submissions to: blue@pinchbackpress.com

Each contributor receives two free copies of the finished book.

Now I'll finally have the chance to tell the story about the night I spent in jail, thanks to my first husband who got a little too merry at a Christmas party when I was just 22. As a result I had to list this incident on every job application I made for decades...as I applied to be hired as a teacher, a social worker or a Peace Corps Volunteer, not professions usually associated with an arrest record. I'm thinking of calling the piece, which I hope to write this weekend, "Arrested Development."

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

2011-08-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

When Dahlynn McKowen revealed that she and hubby Ken were about to launch a new anthology series, Not Your Mother's Book, and wondered if I'd be interested in co-creating a couple of the proposed 25 titles, I felt my heart go pitter-pat.

I've still got a few things I want to do on my "bucket list," and one of them is to someday read my name on the cover of a book. I've had my photo on the cover of Grandmothers' Necklace, and my byline on the cover of a couple of magazines, Uncle Jam and quint. But I've never written an entire book or helped to compile one.

Now I've got a chance. I'll be working on at least two of the collections, "On Sharing Secrets" and "On My First Time." It was while we discussed the concept of the latter that Dahlynn and I came up with the idea for the former. I'd mentioned that when I worked as a psychotherapist I discovered that nearly everybody had a special secret...and that some folks were just itching to confess.

I've yet to decide what I'll write about myself for "On Sharing Secrets" but I already have my story in mind for "My First Time." Though we suspect we'll get submissions about first attempts at athletic feats...surfing, scuba diving, skiing, roller skating, and coming-of-age landmarks...the first date, the first prom, the first kiss, et. al, we're hoping we'll be regaled with out-of-the-ordinary first time ventures, as well. My "First Time" story will involve my first visit to my favorite city...and a ghost!

As Dahlynn says, this series won't be as family-friendly as some other anthologies...it will be more PG13 and TV14, with edgier, sassier tales. So now's the time to write the stories you've been saving, the true confessions you believed you'd have to Bowdlerize if they were ever to see print.

Proposed titles for the new series: Not Your Mother’s Book…

1. Military Life
2. My First Time
3. On Alternative Lifestyles
4. On Being Actively Retired
5. On Being a Mom
6. On Being a Nurse
7. On Being a Stupid Kid
8. On Being a Teacher
9. On Being a Woman
10. On Cats
11. On College
12. On Dogs
13. On Do-It-Yourselfers
14. On Fishing
15. On Girls’ Night Out
16. On Golfing
17. On Grandparenting
18. On Horses
19. On Menopause
20. On Moms-to-Be
21. On Parenting
22. On Sharing Secrets
23. On Travel
24. On Weddings
25. On Writing

Tell every writer and wannabe writer you know about this amazing opportunity to get published. Hurry on over to Publishing Syndicate's website, check out the guidelines and start writing your stories today.

http://publishingsyndicate.com/publishing_syndicate/ps_home.html

Here's the link to the wonderful free WOW Principles Newsletter, with more information about the series:

http://publishingsyndicate.com/publishing_syndicate/newsletters/wow_newsletter.html

Wisdom of the Heart

2011-08-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Whether you've had a loved one go to battle or simply get a lump in your throat when you hear "America the Beautiful," you'll appreciate the heartfelt stories and poems in this wonderful new Silver Boomer book.

I've never thought of myself as particularly patriotic...I'm not a flag waver or a soapbox screamer. But I'm thrilled that three of my stories appear in this book, which is inspired by the impending tenth anniversary of 9/11. "Suds and Solace" directly addresses the fear I felt when my husband and I flew to Germany for Oktoberfest just ten days after the destruction of the Twin Towers. "A Taxing Topic" describes why I don't moan and groan on income tax day, and why I believe it's a universal obligation to pay for the protection our military provides.

But my favorite is "Foote Notes for My Father," which recounts the pride my dad had in being the oldest enlisted man on his ship, the USS Foote, which was torpedoed in the Solomons in WWII.

My father led a life of adventure. He operated a dancing school in Utah in the '30s. He ran The Beige Room at San Francisco's intersection of Bay and Powell in the late '40s and early '50s, a nightclub featuring female impersonators. He threw fabulous parties on the houseboat that he built himself and moored at Oakland's Jack London Square. He exhibited his meticulously restored 1946 Lincoln Continental at shows from Disneyland to Silverado. Yet, oddly enough, the only two stories I've written about him relate to his service in WWII.

"Daddy and Raggedy Ann" which will appear shortly in both Bernie S. Seigel's A Book of Miracles and in Fighting the Fear tells of his visits to me at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles where I languished with double pneumonia in 1941, just as he prepared to ship out with the Foote.

I hope it's clear that I admire my dad for his humor, his generous spirit and his ability to befriend everybody he met. But there's something more...he was a remarkable story teller. One of his friends recently told me he'd pay any price to spend an evening listening to a conversation between Al Burgess and Mark Twain. Yep...that Mark Twain, noted as one of the world's most entertaining raconteurs. Al Burgess would have held his own in that imaginary exchange and the two would have entertained one another well into the wee hours.

When I wrote "Foote Notes" I included a brief prose poem my dad wrote. Al Burgess secretly always wanted to be a writer, he once confided. Well...now that The Harsh and The Heart: Celebrating the Military has appeared, he's a published one.

A Miracle: Closing in on The Fabled Fifty

2011-08-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

For months I've lived in the past...plotting invasions and takeovers with Henry VIII, Napoleon and Franco. Now it's back to the present. When I returned from Cambridge I had several new books with my stories waiting for me:

Nurturning Paws, with "Oh, Fudge, Another Nudge."
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart, with "Our Great Expectations" and "The Bet."
The Harsh and the Heart: Celebrating the Military, with "Suds and Solace," "A Taxing Topic" and "Foote Notes from my Father."

More books with my tales will appear in September and October:

A Book of Miracles, with "Bats in Our Belfry" and "Daddy and Raggedy Ann."
God Makes Lemonade, with "No Longer a Nuisance."
Fighting Fear: Winning the War at Home, with "Daddy and Raggedy Ann."
Thin Threads for Moms & Grandmas, with "She'll Know Me."

There's half a dozen others in the works with uncertain release dates, but I'm hopeful I'll have achieved my goal of fifty books with my stories by my 75th birthday next June, a bet I made with my late husband, Ken Wilson.

Me, From A to Z

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” ~William Wordsworth

“We’ll find something special to put between these,” Ken said, weighing the pair of heavy black A- and Z-shaped bookends in his palms. “What a gorgeous gift.”

The two of us toured the house, looking for a suitable spot to display this Christmas present from his youngest son.

“Maybe on top the entertainment center?” I asked.

I always deferred to my husband about grouping paintings or positioning the potted plants, knickknacks and bagatelles that crowded the shelves and tables of our airy home. I’d often thought that with his unerring eye for spatial relations, Ken would have made a successful interior decorator.

“Sure. We can put them there now, and figure out what books they’ll hold later.”

A few months later I received notice from Chicken Soup for the Soul that one of my stories had been selected to appear in their upcoming anthology, Celebrating Brothers and Sisters. Subsequently I received my contributor’s copy, the first book I’d ever held that contained one of my bylined stories. I’d been published in newspapers and magazines dozens of times, but this was different. This was a book.

I handed it to my husband.

“Look inside where I stuck the bookmark. It’s my story. I know it’s only one book, but can we put it between the A and Z bookends?”

“I’ve never heard of bookends holding only one book,” Ken said, with a chuckle that sounded like a blend of snicker and snort.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ll soon have more.”

I walked over to the bookends and tucked my book between the bookends, and stepped back. It looked a little lonely there, like an orphan in need of a family.

“How many books do you think would fit up there on top the entertainment center?”

Ken cast a professional eye in its direction.

“If they’re all paperbacks, there’s easily room for fifty. But even two or three would look better than one.”

“Well, that one’s pretty special, since it’s my first. But I’ll conjure up some companions soon. Fifty sounds about right.”

My husband laughed again.

“Didn’t you tell me that these anthologies want true stories, things that have happened to you? Are you telling me that you really have fifty stories to tell? Fifty things that other people would want to read about?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of memories I’d love to share. You’re right, though. Fifty’s a lot.”

“Baby, make it easy on yourself. Try for a dozen.”

“No…you said there’s room for fifty.”

Ken shook his head and walked away.

So I sold a second story, and then a third. Ken began to ask from time to time, “How many books have you got up there now?” Sometimes I’d overhear him on the phone, bragging that I’d placed yet another story.

I’d always read them to him before I sent them out.

He’d scrunch up his face in wonder. “How do you remember every word your mother said to you when you were six?”

“I don’t,” I confessed. “It’s literary license.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be true?”

“They are,” I insisted. “But I fudge a little on dialog and write what I think sounds like what Mama or my brother or you would have said.”

Ken grinned. Unable to recall much about his own early days, he liked hearing about mine. So I continued to track down memories I could translate to tales.

One day I noticed Ken’s skin looked sallow. He’d complained that morning of lacking any energy. I made an emergency appointment for him with his doctor. Jaundiced, he had to be hospitalized for tests and an MRI, and the diagnosis turned out to be horrific. Pancreatic cancer.

Throughout the next few months I doubted I’d be able to continue to write. Sometimes I’d sit at my laptop, stare at the page, waiting for the words to come. Then I’d remember I promised Ken I’d appear in fifty books. So I’d write another. He’d nod approval as I’d read aloud.

By June 2009, when Ken died, eleven books nestled together between the bookends, a burgeoning family. On the actual date of his death, UPS delivered a box containing my copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times, Tough People with two stories about Ken and our lives together. Now the bookends embraced the neat dozen he’d suggested as a fair goal.

Still I longed for that original fifty. At first, though, in my grief I feared my muse had fled. Soon, however, I found solace in recounting more of our adventures together, so once again I began to write and submit. I still could do it, even without Ken sitting in his favorite recliner waiting for me to read him my latest effort.

Right now I’ve lined up 40 bewitching books, with several more scheduled to be published over the remainder of the year. Fifty’s in sight.

Some people claim books are dinosaurs, relics of an earlier, more primitive age.

At a recent meeting of my book group one of our members, a little bit younger and a lot more tecky then the rest of us, held up a royal blue device no larger than her hand, and announced she’d read our current month’s choice on her e-reader.

“I’ll never return to physical books, if I can help it,” she declared.

Though I’ve got a Kindle, and download to it frequently, I’m still enamored of physical books. I grew up haunting the stacks in libraries. I’ve owned library cards in five states and four overseas countries. I’ve always got a book or twelve on my bedside table.

These days I’m happiest reading the anthologies that include my stories. How it cheers my spirits to see the volumes assembled in my family room, bookmarks saucily inserted at the pages where my stories begin. Where I used to start each day with a chat with Ken, I now begin by reading an anthology story as I sip my morning tea.

I doubt I’d ever find a publisher for my autobiography, should I write one. I’m not a celebrity. My name’s hardly a household word. Nonetheless, I’m blessed to have found a way to publish my life’s story, chapter by chapter, through these collections.

Earlier this year I conducted a workshop on writing narrative essays at my local library, “A Penny for Your Thoughts.” Sixteen people came to learn how to write about their lives.

“Nobody gets rich in writing for anthologies,” I admitted. “But look at all the other compensations. Your friends and family will be thrilled to read about themselves.”

“Yeah,” one man interrupted, “and you’ve got a published work!”

Not long after I received a thank you note from the librarian. She wrote, “It was such a treat to hear you read your stories…your tips and experience in the field were so valuable. Your audience was completely captive!”

I had read two of my Chicken Soup for the Soul stories, both about grandmothers, one about my grandmother’s funeral, and one about becoming a grandmother myself. The audience hung on my every word. And when I finished….they applauded. Even Ken, appreciative as he may have been, never did that.

What a gorgeous gift!

Sunday Newspaper Competition and Strawberry Cider

2011-07-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

The war of the tabloids to pick up readership from the defunct Sunday News of the World is on. According to the Manchester Guardian, The People, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday have launched aggressive campaigns with a mixture of extra marketing and price cutting to attract former NoW readers who on average purchase 2,670,000 copies weekly in June, making it Britain's largest-selling Sunday newspaper.

While readership of American Sunday papers diminish, Britain's remain faithful, per the following statistics:

Headline circulation of Sunday national newspapers – June 2011

News of the World: 2,667,428

Mail on Sunday: 1,927,791

Sunday Mirror: 1,087,796

Sunday Express: 539,478

The People: 474,549

Daily Star Sunday: 305,978

Sunday Time: 1,000,848

Sunday Telegraph: 474,722

The Observer: 288,928

Independent on Sunday: 151,229

As I read about the death of Amy Winehouse, the queues outside Buckingham Palace to peek at the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress, and a solid editorial on why university education should be accessible to all, I sipped a Brothers Cider at The Snug, a pub next door to my Lensfield Hotel. Its label reads:

"It has taken four brothers and 14 generations of cider makers to create this unique strawberry mixed pear cider, served at the Glastonbury Festival since 1995. Enjoy it chilled, over ice or in a muddy field."

I chose "over ice," no muddy field in immediate sight.

Later I checked into my room at Memorial Court, Clare College, and then dined at Old Court, with Laurence from France, Ken from the US, Andrea from Germany and Paul from Holland.

Classes start tomorrow, with Henry VIII, Napoleon, plenary lecture on War and Peace: Frederick the Great and Napoleon and evening lecture on War, Peace and British Secret Intelligence.

Literary Limbo

2011-07-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

Memorial Court, Clare College, University of Cambridge

I can't blame neglecting my blog totally on daydreaming of Cambridge, but it's an easy scapegoat. Sure, I've been preparing for my second consecutive summer, this year in the history track. For the past several weeks I've been immersed in Tudor England, the Napoleonic wars and the Spanish Civil War. Hanging out with Henry VIII and Napoleon takes a lot of energy... pondering Picasso's Guernica can be draining, indeed.

June and July hold so many so many beginnings and endings...both of my weddings, the birthdays of each of my husbands, plus my own, and the anniversaries of the deaths of my late husband and of some dear friends. So to slog through these days without collapsing into total ennui, I've watched 18 episodes of The Grand, the British television series set in 1920s Manchester. Plus I've devoted a couple of nights each week to So You Think You Can Dance, wishing I were 16 once more, pirouetting with the Pavlovettes.

But now, after a few weeks of literary limbo, I've written and submitted some new stories.

My latest narrative essays:

How a Peace Corps Medical Officer aligned my nose with my toes.
Why marriage can be all fun and games, given a good deck of cards.
When you can't be 100% positive, maybe 85% will suffice.
What devoting a minute a day to practicing Spanish can do for your mental health.
Where to start when you're feeling paralyzed with fear.

Now I've got to get back to Harry Houdini's pesky rodent. That rabbit's been on my mind for weeks.

Jilted, but not a Bitter Betty for long....

2011-06-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finished my spring cleaning and put up my summer sign, Ms. Sheeply, to ready my home and my spirits for at long last...summer. Even though we've yet to hit an 80 degree temperature here, that doesn't mean it's never going to get warm.

So even though I got some bad news yesterday about one of my favorite stories, that doesn't mean I won't see it in print ever. Over the past five years I've learned that in the give and take of freelance writing, sometimes it might feel like lots of give and little take.

Some writers deal with rejection by figuring the odds. Jay Neugeboren blogs beautifully today in Poets and Writers about keeping score of rejections and acceptances, and how he reminds himself that the scoreboard is his muse.

http://www.pw.org/content/jay_neugeboren

So here's what happened to give me the early summertime blues. Yesterday I received two email missives from an anthology I regularly contribute to. In the early afternoon I received a general call out, asking for a story for an upcoming book about how teenagers deal with difficulties. I immediately dashed down a reminder. I welcomed another fresh opportunity to explore a long ago event in my life, the time I'd had to drop out of college in my sophomore year because of an injury from an auto accident.

Then, a little later, I got an update on a book that's scheduled to be published next month, one that I thought would contain one of my favorite stories, about attending my grandmother's funeral when I was fifteen. This note informed that my story wouldn't appear in the book after al.

I sat there, stunned. I've had stories cut by this anthology series three times now this past year, after I'd already signed permission slips...but this is the first time I've been cut after I'd already OKed page proofs.

I'm not a quibbler, so editors generally find me easy to work with. I don't care if a title gets changed or an ending gets truncated. Just give me my byline and give me the book. But this time around I was so puzzled, I actually asked for an explanation. I got an answer. The editors had to include more stories by actual teens...so my bad luck, I got scissored.

Back in earlier years, when I used to write articles for magazines, most publishers at least offered a kill fee, usually 25% of the agreed-upon compensation. For anthologies, though, the author writes on speculation. You take your chances. Some publishers don't bother to send rejection notices, let alone any whisper of why a story isn't selected.

I can understand this. Sheer numbers can prevent a personal response. This popular series, for instance, generally receives two to three thousand submissions for each proposed title.

But yesterday I felt devastated...just as if my suitor had called off the engagement and jilted me at the altar.

Coincidentally, yesterday morning I'd sat in on a webinar on marketing memoirs, hosted by Writer's Digest. Literary agent Paula Balzer, who represents such diverse celebrity talents as Diablo Cody (Juno) and Randy Jackson (American Idol), warned us not to write as Bitter Bettys. Nobody wants to read rants about mean bosses, spiteful neighbors or evil ex-spouses. So apparently we're supposed to get over our broken hearts.

"Memoirs need to come from a place of resolution," she said.

I agree. Rants can be draining, and can keep us frozen in the past. So today I'll seek another home for my sweet little orphaned story. I used to say I was never certain of publication until I saw the page proofs. From now on I won't count my chickens until I hear them clucking on my doorstep.

In the meantime, for those writers of memoirs and narrative essays who missed Balzer's webinar...here's her To Do List:

Write frequently.
Be marketable.
Find a hook.
Read memoirs.
Play with structure.
Find your voice.
Research carefully.
Build a platform.

His Three Sons

2011-06-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

Ken always claimed that he took little pride in any of his personal accomplishments, but felt overwhelmingly proud of his three sons, shown below on July 4,2000. (Left to right: Scott, Darren, Ken, Rick)

He believed that fathers needed to tell their children how much they loved them, especially sons.

"It's easy to be daddy's little princess, and know you're loved. But you've got to tell the boys that so they grow up knowing it's all right to say they love somebody," he said. Though Ken sometimes found it difficult to talk about his emotions, he could and did say, "I love you," and "I'm proud of you."

Happy Father's Day to all the dads! And tell somebody that you love them.

June 18 Again...

2011-06-18T08:56:00.001-07:00

Maybe life really is all about weddings and babies!

I can replay nearly every detail of only three days of my life, July 1, 2000, when I married Ken Wilson, February 22, 1958, when my son, Steve, was born, and Saturday, June 18, 1955, when I married Bob Elders. Fifty-six years later, the date falls on a Saturday once more.

I still remember:

Walking to the beauty parlor to get my very first professional haircut.
Arguing with my sister over a crinoline hoop slip that she wanted to borrow, and which I needed to make my wedding dress stand out all around.
Ironing my grandmother's wrinkled suit skirt after she arrived in Lynwood from Ontario.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the best man, Neil Widener, wouldn't produce a potato peeler instead of the rings, as he had threatened to do...but not quite remembering why this had been a running joke for several weeks.
Marrying Bob Elders in front of about a hundred family members and friends.
Forgetting my Uncle Howard's name in the reception line.
Changing into my going away dress, a sleeveless black sheath with zebra piping around the neckline.
Cutting the cake at the reception in the basement of St. Luke Lutheran Church.
Sneaking away from the second reception at Bob's parent's house in Downey to drive to Long Beach to spend the night at the Villa Riviera, when it was the swankiest hotel in town.
Worrying that I'd get seasick on the next day's seaplane flight to Avalon on Catalina Island.
Realizing that Bob had to be my legal guardian until June 28 when I'd turn 18.
Wondering where I'd be on subsequent June 18ths.

Today is my granddaughter, Kendra's, second birthday...I'll never forget the date.

Weather or Not

2011-06-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

Imagination & Place Press seeks submissions for an anthology on weather, a subject much on my mind this month. Here in Northeast WA we've yet to see a day where the temperature has hit 80 degrees. The average date for the first 80 degree day is May 12. We're over a month late, and I'm guessing we've had fewer than a dozen days where we even got up to 70.

Ken and I moved here because he wanted to live where there were four seasons, in proper order, he claimed. He'd lived in Reno, where the seasons jumped around...snow could fall in every month but August. And we'd lived in Silver Spring, MD, where some years we'd have a winter that seemed to last just three weeks.

In the past few years here, though, winter has encroached on both fall and spring...this past year or two it seemed to last for five months. Summers have been so cool, they're almost nonexistent. Autumn last year stuck around for about two weeks...the first snow fell before the last leaf did. So some say we now have two seasons, winter and sprall, a seven month stretch of spring/fall.

I've just read Bill McKibbon's Eaarth, so wonder if our traditional seasons ever will return. Lots to think about while I begin to explore my perceptions of weather linked to imagination and place.

It's been raining intermittently today, so my pastures will remain unmown until tomorrow. The grass out there is lushly thick and thigh high. Natty hid from me in it yesterday afternoon. During the one brief break today, I captured some of the flowers in my yard before they fade. Here's color, color everywhere, just as Ken used to say he wanted to see. The daffodils are gone, but the iris have taken their place, and the Asian lilies will be coming along soon...and of course by late July and August, the zinnias.

Followed by five months of shades of white.

Wising Up Says "Not Now"

2011-06-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

When I saw the call out from Wising Up Press at Universal Table for reflections about good deeds, I knew immediately what I'd write about. Here's the call out:

We start with the best of intentions - opening our hearts, offering suggestions, good will, time, skills, food, money, a bed - betting this instinctual generosity will. . .well that's not always so clear. But however cloudy the immediate goal, the larger one glows. We're making a world we want to be part of, doing what we feel is right or just, or just expressing preemptive solidarity, acting toward someone in the way we would like them to act toward us if our situations were reversed. Often enough, our generosity leads to greater friendship, empowerment, optimism, reciprocity. But then there are those other times - with a different person or the very same one - when our actions and motives may seem consistent with whatever we did before, but the consequences, practical and social, are dramatically different and call into question some of our most cherished assumptions. We can feel like a trump, an easy mark. We can feel obscurely or openly responsible for whatever went askew. Or angry. Betrayed. Shamed. Defensive. But, for some reason that is as powerful as it is unclear, we are unwilling to stay in that state and, at the same time, unwilling to write off the consequences as an aberration, a bad bet. We invite writers to explore through poetry, fiction, memoir and creative non-fiction acts of generosity that have had unintended consequences and the sense, over time, we have made of them.

I wrote about a decision I'd made to help a former boyfriend for a few years while he wrote two novels. I had the time and money to share his life. He had the time and talent to finally write a couple of stories that had haunted him. Nothing turned out the way I'd envisioned it...but, I'd do it again. So I wrote my essay, "Needs."

Today I learned that Wising Up will not be publishing my story, nor the book:

Dear Theresa,

We regret to inform you that we will not be publishing the Good Deeds that Turn On Us & the Sense We Make of Them anthology. This decision has been made reluctantly and after extended consideration of all manuscripts.

Although we received many submissions and read them with openness and care, we did not find enough of them with the depth of characterization and emotional insight needed to make up a strong anthology that has those qualities we value in our Wising Up anthologies – warm, empathic, musing, and open to new meaning.

We are disappointed because we really liked this theme and thought it provided a good opportunity to reflect on the mysterious origins of altruism and is uneven consequences in the world, a very Universal Table theme.

However, if we had had more submissions like yours, perhaps the anthology would have pulled together. Please keep your eye out for other Calls for Submissions of ours and submit again if you feel you have appropriate material.

Best wishes,
Heather and Charles

Heather Tosteson, Ph.D.
Charles D. Brockett, Ph.D.
Publishers
Wising Up Press

What kind words..."if we had had more submissions like yours."

I'll continue to look for a publisher for this story...I've sent it to Dream of Things as a possible tale for its planned book on stories about forgiveness. I think it might be a good fit.

Nonetheless, I'm disappointed that this anthology shall not be born...it would have been an engrossing one indeed!

Universal Table has a welcoming philosophy that continues to resonate with me:

The aim of Universal Table is to promote tolerance and social trust along many dimensions of life - or those are the words we have been using in our official mission statement. But each time we use them, we realize we are trying to describe something far broader - something that encompasses welcome, difference, surprise and inclusion, truthfulness and authenticity, and an equal place for each of us and what we hold most dear. These are the true goals of Universal Table: Finding the We in Them, the Us in You.

http://www.universaltable.org/welcome.html

A Bad Hare Day: Tweaking History

2011-06-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

All morning I've struggled with the opening of a short story about Harry Houdini's hare, Harriet, who brings a bereaved widow messages from the Great Beyond. So far I've figured out who my protagonist is...it's definitely the messenger working on behalf of the Dearly Deceased.

But I'm going to have to buck history, I'm afraid. The title of this pictured framed art print is "Harry Houdini and His Rabbit Entertain Five Hospitalized Children 1925." It's a photo that my late husband, Ken Wilson, greatly admired and considered buying.

Rabbits and hares share the same kingdom, phylum, class, order and family, but they're from different genera. And hares, who nest above ground, rarely can be domesticated. I'd hoped Houdini pulled hares out of his hat, but this short-eared creature who seems so comfortable with children clearly is a dark-furred bunny, I fear.

Hmmmm. Maybe I can make Harriet a second cousin twice removed and a jealous rival of the bunny in this photo? Hey, it's literary license. I'm sticking to my story. In my Great Beyond Houdini's at home with his heavenly hare!

True Romance (RIP)

2011-06-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

Ken's been gone two years today...but his spirit still is strong here. This morning I had to rifle through a duffel bag of photos in search of a picture taken of my first husband's dad. But it took more than an hour because I paused so often to gaze at pictures of the life's journey that Ken and I shared...pictures of us in Reno, in Sweden, in England, in Colorado Springs, and here in the gardens of the house he loved so much.

I also looked at the old e-mails I still have filed under Kenny D, and found the cartoon I've posted above. Ken sent it to me in June 2008. I also found the prose poem below. Ken didn't write it, but he sent it to me just a couple of months before we got married in 2000.

Reason, Season, Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what
to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is
usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or
inwardly. They have come to assist you through a
difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support,
to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are
there for the reason, you need them to be. Then,
without any wrong doing on your part or at an
inconvenient time, this person will say or do
something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a
stand. What we must realize is that our need has been
met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The
prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now
time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is
because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn.
They may bring you an experience of peace or make you
laugh. They may teach you something you have never
done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of
joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
those things you must build upon in order to have a
solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the
lesson, love the person/people (any way); and put what
you have learned to use in all other relationships and
areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but
friendship is clairvoyant

Thank you for being a part of my life....

xox

Canadian Cowboys and Ken Wilson

2011-06-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

For one who never crossed our northern border until my late spouse, Ken Wilson, and I were house shopping in northeast Washington in 2004, I'm getting some attention in Canada...and it's thrilling because it's from academia.

Several months ago I submitted a story about my late spouse's fascination with cowboy heroes for consideration for a collection, Cowboy Love, even though I doubted it was what the publisher, a university press, sought. Today I got this amazing response:

Dear Theresa: I'm writing to ask you for permission to publish "All of His Heroes" in an online quarterly, the quint, that I'm editing at University College of the North (The Pas, Canada). It's such a fine piece of writing I'd really like to see it get "out there" to readers (our readership is growing--it's a young journal--I'm afraid we can't pay, but we have some very fine creative writers publishing with us and we have an international readership). Would you be interested? As you noted, the Cowboy Love collection is too academically oriented for your piece to fit. Anyways, here's the link below (I'm not sure why they titled the URL the way they did, I'm always apologizing for it). Just paste it into your browser and you should be taken right to the quint's archives. Our June issue is about to go into production and I thought of your piece. My apologies for it being such a long time between you sending "All of His Heroes" in and this response--we've been so busy up here.

I hope things are going well for you down South and this note finds you healthy and happy.

Best wishes,

Sue Matheson

https://www.ucn.ca/ics/Programs/Degree_Programs/Faculty_of_Arts_and_Science/Humanities/Default_Page.jnz?portlet=Handouts

Of course, I gave permission. I think Ken would have been delighted to know that students at a university 400 miles above Winnipeg, Manitoba, at the University College of the North, will be reading about his fondness for western movies. I too was delighted, once I'd had a chance to browse the archives of this beautiful literary journal. Though the June issue will be available on the Internet, hard copies can be requested, and the editor has agreed to send me a few.

Additionally, Chicken Soup for the Soul informed me several weeks ago that my story, "Three Bowls of Borscht," about Ken and me in Grand Forks, BC, is a finalist for its upcoming O Canada. In this tale I managed to combine Ken's admiration of Paladin with Sasquatch mythology connected to Kokanee beer. Plus I reminisced about a couple of anniversaries, our fifth which we spent in Grand Forks together, and our tenth, when I drove up there alone, a year after Ken's death.

I'm keeping my maple leaves crossed.

So tonight I'll probably dream about Canada. Maybe I'll hear Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald singing "Indian Love Call" and see Ken's reaction as I tell him that those scenes in Rose Marie, where they sang together across the Canadian wilderness were actually filmed at Lake Tahoe, where Ken worked as a bartender when he first moved from Modesto, CA to Nevada.

He'd grin at that, just as he grinned when he asked me if "borscht" were somehow connected to "horscht" or "chickenscht." That was Ken...a man worthy of celebration in the frozen north!

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

2011-05-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said; 'one can't believe impossible things.'
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' "--Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

This morning I scrolled through several websites listing calls for anthology submissions. Then, while I weeded and sowed zinnia seeds, I came up with ideas for half a dozen projects:

A short story about a magician's rabbit who can carry messages back and forth to The Great Beyond.
An essay about how my temperament calmed down in the tropics.
A confessional on how AlAnon helped me deal with my first husband's alcoholism.
A short story about a woman's regrets on missing out on motherhood.
A story from my father's point of view, when he was torpedoed in WWII.
A narrative essay on the running gin game I had with my late husband.

These six projects should keep me busy at the keyboard through June.

Telling Tales at the Library

2011-05-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Last night at the Colville Public Library I talked about writing for anthologies. I'd fretted that nobody would show up, but a nice group of around fifteen people came. All appeared eager to discuss the delights of what used to be called putting pen to paper. Like me, most had been writing tales since childhood.

Though I'd called my presentation "A Penny for Your Thoughts," and indicated I'd focus on memoir, on crafting narrative essays for anthologies such as Chicken Soup for the Soul, I discovered that many in the group had other interests. Many wrote fiction, so we discussed today's market for that, especially genres such as fantasy, horror and sci fi. One gentleman has assembled an expose of the martial arts industry which he claims "isn't pretty." Another man would like to get a writers' group going and suggested a sign-up sheet for those who would be interested in periodic discussions.

I summarized the essential elements of narrative essays, provided a handout listing paying and non-paying markets for slice-of-life stories, and read two of the stories I've sold to Chicken Soup, "Pansies, Painted Ladies and Pink Polka Dots," which will be published this August in Just for Teensagers, and "Ready for Stardust," which appeared earlier this year in Grandmothers. I divulged my biggest secret for the former...learning to stay in the voice of the teen, rather than my usual voice, an aging woman reflecting on her youthful experiences. This is something I'd overlooked before...neglecting to remember who the readers of the book would be. Though plenty of grandmas will read a book called Grandmothers, they are NOT the ones who will read Just for Teenagers.

Although the group politely applauded at the conclusion of my readings of my tales, I got my biggest laugh when I mentioned something editor Colleen Sell had blogged when she was still producing the Cup of Comfort series. She'd been astonished to receive certain submissions for a book on fathers that had a publication date timed to attract Father's Day shoppers. Many contributors sent in diatribes about hateful, abusive, neglectful, foul-mouthed and even fouler-smelling alcoholic oafs whom they wholeheartedly hoped would roast for eternity in the Lake of Fire. The half dozen men who attended last night roared.

That wasn't the only laugh, though. Yesterday afternoon I'd received confirmation of the receipt of a story I've submitted for an upcoming book, My Funny Valentine. I shared what the editor had written: "Wow, Colville. I'd snicker about 'hick NE WA town' except my father is from Hunters, and I used to work ranches there in the summer. Colville and Davenport were my idea of hitting the big city."

Hey, Colville is the county seat of Stevens County and boasts a population of 5000. And even here, in the remote northeastern corner of the state, just below the Canadian border, people show up to talk about the art and craft of writing. Just as they do in the big cities...no different from Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle.

Word!

2-4-6-8, Who Do I Appreciate?

2011-05-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

(Rick and Angela in my front yard the day they got engaged, 12/25/04)

Dream of Things publisher Mike O'Mary claims your notes of appreciation will make the world a million times better! He's on a mission to enlist a million people in The Note Project, encouraging us all to give voice to appreciation for the people who enrich our lives.

Visit his Note Project blog, and learn how writing notes of appreciation can promote literacy, and make you and somebody else feel better right now! http://noteproject.com/

Here's the note of appreciation I posted today, thanking Angela Wilson, my stepson's now-American wife!

I’m writing to thank my step-daughter-in-law, Angela Wilson, who this past week became a United States citizen. I met Angela in 2003 when I went to Moldova to do a Peace Corps health project review. She then worked as the executive assistant to Van Nelson, the Peace Corps director in that little Eastern European country. Already Angela had embarked on the first of a series of adventures, leaving her hometown of Serpenti to work in the bustling city of Chisineau.

My husband of three years often mentioned he hoped his middle son, Rick, would find somebody to share his life. Rick at the time worked as a meat packager at Costco while he went to school to get a master’s degree in teaching. He additionally taught as a substitute in various elementary schools in the Reno area. He didn’t have much time for dating or any social life at all.

Angela expressed interest in improving her written English and Rick, fond of the Internet, had corresponded with a number of women overseas. I linked the two together. Romance didn’t blossom at first. But after a couple of years of corresponding, Angela invited Rick to visit Moldova. He countered with an offer to pay for her airfare so she could see the United States.

On Christmas day, 2004, they took a long walk in the falling snow around my neighborhood in Northeast Washington, and came back engaged. Rick and Angela married in Serpenti in 2005, honeymooned in Moscow, and she came to the States that autumn. In June 2009, two weeks after my husband, Ken, died, Angela gave birth to my granddaughter, Kendra. My husband knew the baby would be a girl and would be named for him.

Though they now live in Casa Grande, Arizona, where Rick teaches third grade and Angela studies for a nursing degree, I’ll be seeing them this summer. I can hardly wait to congratulate citizen Angela in person.

Tomorrow’s Angela’s birthday. Happy birthday, citizen Angela Wilson! And thank you for enriching the lives of the entire family!

Evening Shadows Make Me Blue

2011-05-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I'll be talking at the Colville Public Library about writing for anthologies. I began writing my life's stories nearly five years ago. It's a never-ending endeavor. But I'm glad I've chosen to do it in snippets, in small chunks, for anthologies, not for a stand-alone autobiography.

I'd bet that would be a futile effort. I've benefited from the experience of others. For instance, back in the '70s, a friend confided that he'd drafted the first several chapters of his autobiography and sent it to his agent, the very woman who had helped him reach success as a writer...in his special area of expertise, solar energy. Did she give him a thumbs up? No way. He showed me the terse note she'd sent him in those pre-computer days.

"Ted, you are not a household name. Nobody wants to read about your upbringing in Lahore, nor your views on current affairs, either in Pakistan or in your own checkered life."

Ted was dashed with this news. He'd published half a dozen books that had sold well to environmentalists and engineers. He thought he had what today is known as a platform.

But his readers were interested in his expertise, not in him. He abandoned trying to market his life story and embarked on writing a novel. Of course it was based on his life...a thinly veiled recounting of his marriages and divorces, mistakes and triumphs. His agent didn't like that either. Abashed, Ted gave up and settled down to write a book about windmill power.

He'd found his niche. But I think he'd have a best seller today. Times have changed. His recounting of his woes and troubles, loves unrewarded, fortunes lost through reckless gambling, stints in rehab for alcoholism. The very stuff of reality TV and celebrity bios.

Though I've chosen a different path in telling my story in snippets to inspirational anthologies, I, too, have a shadier, edgier side. My life's not all mirth and sunshine. So these past few months I've targeted other markets. I've written about:

My undiagnosed childhood anxiety disorder for an anthology of women's stories of struggles with mental illness.
My failed first marriage for a book on how women successfully survive toxic relationships.
My favor for a writer friend that paid off, but not in the way I'd anticipated, for a collection of reflections about good deeds.

But today I'm back to drafting another story to submit to Chicken Soup for the Soul's upcoming book on finding happiness. I'm bombarding the editors for this book! I've already sent them five other tales for consideration. By now they're probably cowering under their desks when they download yet another piece from me.

But, hey, I've always believed that happiness is a choice. So I'm determined to shove and shoulder my way into this book!

So far I've written about building a friendship with a penpal, paying thankful homage to the IRS, revisiting a childhood home, celebrating a birthday in the Dominican Republic and delighting in a tasty snack on the shores of Lake Naivasa in Kenya. Now I'm tackling a new topic, why I'm still happiest with a book, even though I appreciate my Kindle.

Will I be happy if all my submissions are rejected? Not overjoyed, but I'll still be happy. As I'll tell my audience on Tuesday, I always let my turned-down tales incubate in my story orphanage for a while. Then I spiffy them up and send them to knock on other doors. Rejection may sting...but it doesn't mean the story's not worth resubmitting.

Nor that I can't call myself... like Anne Boleyn...The Most Happy!

Anne knew what would make her happy and she got it...at least for a while.

Easter Bloomers

2011-04-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

The first story I ever published in an anthology, "Easter Bloomers," appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Celebrating Brothers and Sisters. We're pictured here in our Easter finery, just about to head down the hill for the Friends Church in Scotts Mills, Oregon, where my brother may or may not bring shame upon the family!

EASTER BLOOMERS
By Terri Elders

From my sixth birthday the summer of 1943 when Mama confided to my older sister, Patti, and me that there was a baby on the way, I knew it would be a boy. Despite Grandpa’s teasing that I’d soon have a baby sister, I had faith. I fully intended to remain the official Youngest Daughter for life, though I was perfectly willing to play the dual role of Big Sister.

So when Joel was born on September 30, I was not surprised. But when he arrived home from the hospital, I was somewhat disappointed. A new first-grader, my favorite activity was playing school. I had been counting on this new family addition to join me and my dolls in my makeshift schoolroom. Baby Joel couldn’t even sit up, let alone hold a pencil in his tiny fist. Mama comforted me though by painting a rosy picture of the future, when Joel indeed would become my attentive pupil.

So I bided my time, helping bathe and diaper him, joining Mama in singing Tura-Lura-Lural to him at bedtime, admiring him when he finally could eat a peanut butter sandwich by himself. I waited for him to walk. I waited for him to talk. And finally at the age of three, he began to join in playschool sessions.

But sometimes Joel didn’t seem to take his lessons seriously, so as his teacher I would inform him sternly that while the dolls were earning A’s, he’d be lucky to get a C. “It’s C, A, T,” I would pronounce, pushing back my bangs in exasperation. “T, A, C,” Joel would spell back, and then giggle and clap his hands. “Better than the dolls, huh?” I would throw up my hands in disgust.

Joel was equally cheerful in his Sunday School class, and talented, as well, particularly excelling at coloring Bible story pictures. Then one Sunday as Easter neared, I overheard his teacher telling Mama that Joel would have the first line to recite in the group’s recitation of a holiday poem. His opening line would be, “Easter lilies blooming remind us of the day.” The other preschoolers would in turn complete the additional three lines of the quatrain.

At dinner that night I confided my fear that Joel wouldn’t get the line straight. That’s when Grandpa promised to help coach, which immediately alarmed me. That perennial tease recently had turned his attentions to my innocent brother. Spaghetti, Grandpa claimed, was made from the worms that inhabited the garden. Joel no longer ate pasta. Grizzly bears roamed the hills above our home and feasted on wild blackberries. Joel no longer helped pick berries.

And the first line of the Easter poem, I heard him assuring Joel, really was “Easter bloomers waving.”

Determined that Joel would not disgrace the family by garbling his line, I set up a counterattack. As soon as I memorized my own Easter poem for the service, I began drilling Joel. “It’s Easter lilies blooming,” I would insist. Sometimes he would get it straight and sometimes he would give me Grandpa’s version. I decided to call upon divine reinforcement. “Remember,” I would threaten, “If you don’t get this right, Jesus will be disappointed.”

When we awoke that Easter morning our baskets were already at the foot of the bed. I remember savoring first the sweet chewy yellow marshmallow Peeps chicks. As I got dressed, I downed a rainbow-hued hard-boiled egg, chewed a stick or two of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit, and gazed several times into the innards of my chocolate diorama egg. I counted my jelly beans, and offered to trade Patti for the black ones, my favorite. From time to time I would glance nervously at Joel, while Mama adjusted the collar of his sailor suit.

Then we went to church. Patti was the first of our family to perform, her alto soaring on a solo interval during the choir’s rendition of The Old Rugged Cross. I was next, reciting my poem, and then taking a seat in the front row to watch as Joel’s preschool class marched on stage. The congregation chuckled as the toddlers jostled one another to get into line.

Finally, Joel stepped forward confidently. “Easter,” he announced, and then paused. His eyes caught mine, and then flickered left towards Grandpa near the end of the pew. “Easter,” he began again. I held my breath. “Lilies,” he enunciated clearly. “Blooming,” he continued. “Remind us of the day.” He grinned his jack-o-lantern grin. I beamed back. The next child stepped forward.

Grandpa grumbled a bit on the way home, but I held Joel’s hand and told him he would be getting an A on his next report card. And a gold star, too. Then I leaned over and whispered that I knew that Jesus was pleased.

“Did I do better than the dolls?” he asked. “Oh, yes,” I said. “That’s better than anybody in my class.”

Even now Joel still chides me that I’m the overachiever, the “doer,” the academic one in the family, always busy trying to teach, to mentor, to influence. That’s certainly true. But what he overlooks is that as my first pupil, he indeed proved to be my teacher, teaching me the delights of watching somebody learn and succeed. And teaching me to persist and persevere. And teaching me to appreciate the efficacy of the subtle threat.

Wine Wherever On the Way

2011-04-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

Until I married my late husband, Ken Wilson, I'd always figured wine came in three varieties, red, white and dessert. Ken knew wine, though, and impressed me on our first date, as we toured some of the wineries of Napa, St. Helena and Calistoga.

Now I'm learning more about grapes, vineyards and varietals as I'm editing the new Wine Wherever series for Ken and Dahlynn McKowen. The first book in the series will be published shortly...I can hardly wait.

The McKowens previously published The Wine Oh! Guide to California's Sierra Foothills. When I visited with them in Orangedale, CA, last November, they gave me a gift of a bottle of Findleton Estate and Winery's 2007 Zinfandel. This is one of the wineries they had visited in the course of researching the book.

I'd been saving it for a special occasion. That occasion finally turned up last night, a wine tasting party, hosted by a Colville home winemaker for the local branch of American Association of University Women. After an evening of sampling a wide range of reds, we opened the Zinfandel, and for me it was love at first sip. Though the McKowen's guide says Findleton's featured wine is an estate-grown Pinot Noir, if I ever get to Placerville, CA, again, I'd buy a case of this Zinfandel. Even an uneducated palate such as mine recognizes excellence!

Visit the home page for Wine Wherever at: http://publishingsyndicate.com/wine_wherever/wine_wherever_home.html

Wine Wherever features iPhone Apps, and is on Facebook and Twitter. Here's the link to befriend on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WineWherever

Libraries: The Medicine of the Soul

2011-04-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

Today, April 12, is Library Snapshot Day at thousands of libraries across America. Since the Libraries of Stevens County will be participating in this sharing of a glimpse of a day in the life of our libraries, I decided to drop in to the Chewelah branch, which maintains a free magazine exchange rack. Because I'm a magazine junkie and subscribe to a dozen publications, I took a hefty stack to contribute, accumulated over the past few months.

Libraries today will be accumulating statistics on how they serve their communities. They'll be tabulating how many patrons walk through the door, numbers of reference queries, numbers of people using computers, numbers of books transferred from one library to another in a system such as our county maintains, and routine activities such as holds placed, renewals, items cataloged, and books reshelved. They''ll also offer patrons comment sheets.

I visit my Colville branch at least once a week. This week I stopped by to pick up a hold, and will be returning Thursday to facilitate a discussion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel for the Colville book group. Next month I'll even be doing a presentation on writing for anthologies.

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." ~Cicero

Up and Coming

2011-04-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

The Cambridge Summer Shakespeare Festival has finally posted its 2011 schedule, and I'm choosing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. After all the classes on kings, empires and warfare, I'll be ready for comedy!
I received a phone call last night from an editor for the "black and white" anthology series published by Outrider Press, and learned "Once in a Lifetime" is a finalist for this year's book, “A Bird in the Hand: Risk and Flight.”
It's going to be sunny all day today, first bona fide springlike day so far this year, so I'm putting off press releases and emails for community obligations until tomorrow, in favor of trimming some front yard bushes and trotting Natty around the Loop.
And while I'm walking, I'm hoping my long delayed story about Mama's brown betty desserts will finally take form so that at long last I can write it!

Chickery Chick... Cha La, Cha La (Maybe)

2011-03-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

My story about my grandmother's funeral...a harrowing experience for me when I was fifteen, is a finalist to appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Just for Teenagers. Just writing "Pansies, Painted Ladies and Pink Polka Dots" made me remember how we can honor our loved ones and memorialize them, from planting pansies in their honor to writing stories that commemorate them. I'm so grateful that Chicken Soup has chosen to publish stories about more friends and relatives than I can shake a stick at. I'm not putting all my eggs in the Chicken basket, though. Today I dragged out three orphan chicks, brushed up their feathers, polished their beaks, and sent them out to peck on other publishers' doors.

Maybe Tuesday Will be My Good News Day

2011-03-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Since childhood I always have knocked on wood, wished on falling stars, and said “rabbit” for good luck on the first day of each month. And if I make a New Year’s resolution, I rely on my monthly “rabbits” to reinforce my resolve to carry it out.

Two events in my seventh year converged to produce my reliance on this incantation.

The first I still consider my parents’ ultimate act of treachery, a betrayal so profound it kept me in later years from sampling coniglio in Rome or lapin a la cocotte in Paris, not to mention welsh rabbit in Wales, even though I know full well the latter is made with cheese, not Thumper. My perfidious parents, that spring Sunday in 1944, swore that Flopsy and Mopsy, my Easter gifts from a grandmother, had hopped away from their hutch to live happily ever after in Bunnyland. Then Mom served up supper, which included a platter heaped with oddly shaped objects that I’d never seen at our table before.

“It’s fried chicken,” Mama insisted, but that that unfortunate feast nearly turned me into a vegetarian.

The second event was more fortuitous. Shortly after our dining disaster, I read an English storybook where the heroine on the first morning of each month said “rabbit” for courage, stamina and plain good luck. I immediately adopted this routine as my own. I clearly remember regretting that it was too late to “rabbit wish” my beloved bunnies back from Hare Heaven. When I tried to get Mama to tell me if she thought that people actually ate rabbits, or even deer like Bambi, she swiftly averted her eyes and changed the subject.

Later, as an adult, I indoctrinated my son into the “rabbit” practice, and one or two friends, as well. That simple word gives me a bright fresh start each month, a new beginning. I look forward to the first of the month, just as others do to New Year’s Eve.

But my good luck charm doesn't seem to be working well this month. I'd rabbited hard on the first of March, mostly because I was sick of the winter. It started out pretty good...I've noted that the crocus have started to bloom now that the snow's melted in my front yard.

This week, though, since spring officially arrived, I've learned that one of my dearest friends has been diagnosed with cancer, and that another friend not only lost her husband a few months after I lost mine, but recently sustained severe injuries in an automobile accident.

Then today I learned that my toddler granddaughter, Kendra, has been hospitalized again in Casa Grande, AZ. She's had a runny nose, but apparently it lead to a sinus infection. She spiked a fever and had a febrile seizure...always scary even though they usually don't have bad outcomes. But my stepson wrote that he'd said "rabbit" the first of the month because he was looking for a streak of good luck...and didn't get it.

I'm hoping things look up soon for friends and family. I have my own ideas about how spring is supposed to be...and it isn't quite all this.

Spring Fling

2011-03-11T13:39:00.001-08:00

Here's my Natty, looking shaggy, and then looking natty indeed, after his spring bath and lamb cut. Now that the weather's up in the 40s, it was time for him to be shorn. Me, too...I got my haircut yesterday. And though we've still got some snow flurries predicted for this coming week, spring's knocking at the door. Most of the dog yard has thawed, and the cats are shedding their warm winter coats.

Just look at the difference in Natty's appearance...I snapped the "before" photo just three days ago, when he was drowning in fur.

I'm setting aside my winter blues and embracing pastels. I'm wearing green on St. Paddy's Day, and whistling up a leprechaun to inspire me to get more writing done, now that I no longer can claim my fingers tremble from subzero temperatures.

Three Firm Beliefs I'm Writing About:

Some say no good deed goes unpunished...I say untrue.
A steamed persimmon pudding trumps mince pie any old Christmas.
Mama could have ended the War of the Roses with her pineapple upside-down cake.

It Might As Well Be Spring

2011-02-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

The last arctic blast of the season sweeps through Northeast WA, but I remember the promise of prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil. I also favor The Law of Attraction and the power of positive thinking. So I've replaced the snowman I'd placed last November aside my front door with my chirpy spring ornament, even as the snow piles up. My crocus will be crunching up soon, followed by twirls of tulips and dazzles of daffodils. It won't be long now. It won't be long!

In the meantime, here's what I'm writing as February dissolves into March:

A new holiday tale about how my late husband, Ken, carried on with Christmas preparations after I tripped over a cat on the stairs, and fractured my left shoulder.
An essay about how baton twirling and psychologist Albert Ellis helped me overcome a longstanding anxiety disorder.
A piece on common grammar, punctuation and language usage errors that even experienced writers and editors let slip by.
A story about Grandma Gertie's Brown Betty, a baked pudding I adored as a child.,.and think I'll prepare this afternoon...nothing like a cinnamon scent to warm up a house on a bitterly cold last-gasp-of-winter afternoon.

Pink Teas, Travel Shares, Oscar Contenders...and Writing

2011-02-20T10:02:00.001-08:00

After all, I have a choice. I can sit down at my laptop, toss the cats aside when they jump on the desk and curl their tails around the monitor, shove Natty's snout away when he tries to lift my wrist from the keyboard, and get my story about an anxiety disorder written.

Or I can:

Don a hat that once was worn (not by me) in a local community theater production of The Music Man, and relive the days of the suffragettes at an AAUW "Pink Tea" in Spokane.
See all five movies nominated for Academy Award Best Director.
Browse Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites and order the books on the mandatory reading lists for my upcoming University of Cambridge history courses: The Triumphant Reign of Henry VIII, The Spanish Civil War, Napoleon and His Enemies.
Write a tribute to Peter S. Beagle for the spring issue of Uncle Jam.
Write a story about Ken's reluctance to read maps and submit it to Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Edit some "side trip" copy for an upcoming Wine Wherever book on the wineries of California's Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Monterey Counties.
Dust and vacuum my house and host a "travel share" party for Colville Branch AAUW.
Attend a Horizons retreat to plan coming attractions.
Go to two book group discussions...Kingsolver's The Lacuna and Wolfe's A Man in Full. Oh, and read both books, totaling 1500 pages.
Review complaints and cases for the Medical Quality Assurance Commission.
Read and answer e-mails.
Watch the Lakers win some and lose some.
Shop for reasonable airfares to Heathrow.
Apply lemon oil to the bathroom cabinets and louvered doors.
Watch DVDs starring William Hurt: "The Yellow Handkerchief" and "The History of Violence," with "Beautiful Ohio" to arrive Tuesday.
Clean out an underwear drawer.
Keep up my daily correspondence with my writing partner, Annie.
Take Tsunami outdoors for combing since she's shedding yet again.
Water the 25 house plants.

But now that I'm beginning to feel anxious about getting the anxiety disorder story written, I think I'd better write it.

Carpal Brain Syndrome?

2011-02-03T08:23:00.000-08:00

For the past few days I've been plagued with writer's block. Each time I sit down at my laptop I'm distracted by how I can't stop shivering, how my fingers tingle with what my doc and I suspect might be the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome, and how sick to death I am of this winter. While these cheerful thoughts invade my brain, my numb fingers have been trying to type away at a story I'm calling "Creature Comforts." But I haven't made much progress, flooded as I am with negativity.

Then this morning I read Wordstrumpet Charlotte Rains Dixon's column on clearing your mind for writing. It's easy, she claims. Just rage on for ten minutes and then shift gears. Now, refreshed, I'm back to finishing "Creature Comforts."

Great column, and here it is, with her permission:

Clear Your Mind for Writing
By Charlotte Rains Dixon

In the last issue of this newsletter, I talked about the importance of creating a regular writing practice. But what do you do if you carve out that time, sit down at your desk, and find your mind encumbered by so much crap you can't write? Happens all the time, the trick is to have a tool-kit of ways to deal with this problem handy. Here are some suggestions:

1. Clear it Out. It is really important to cultivate some way to clear your mind. Meditate, pray, write in your journal for a few minutes to get your yas-yas out, take a quick walk, whatever helps you to clear your brain. Even taking a few deep breaths when you sit down to write can really help.

2. Set an Intention. You probably have some sort of goals for your writing, such as, finish a novel, write a screenplay whatever. Take that goal, chunk it down into a doable task, and then set an intention. For instance, I am going to write 3 pages today. Or, I will finish the rewrite of chapter 10. Then, when you sit down to write, remind yourself of this intention by closing your eyes, taking a deep breath, and repeating it several times out loud.

3. Ask for Help. And I don't mean from your family. Ask whatever higher power you might believe in to guide you and help you to stay focused. If you don't believe in a higher power, ask your higher self. Because we all have one.

4. Use Your Subconscious. This falls into the Be Prepared category. Take the time to look at whatever it is you want to write about the day before. I know, I know, you don't have time. Listen, everyone has five minutes. Forget about the first five minutes of American Idol (it's just Ryan blabbering anyway), open your file, scan it quickly, ponder what you need to do next, close the file, go watch TV. This helps way more than the time it takes to do it. You'll get your brain engaged and ready to work and be focused, which makes it easier to turn off the worry faucet.

5. Keep a Notebook Handy. Keep a small notebook or scratch pad right next to your computer. If you get one of those distracting worry thoughts, pause for one minute and write it down. You need bread at the store? Write it down. You remembered an appointment? Write it down. Then make a habit of checking over these notes at the end of your writing session and dealing with them accordingly. Note the appointment on your calendar, make your grocery list, whatever.

6. Keep An Idea Notebook Nearby. Same theory as above, only for ideas. Many creative types start working on one project, only to think of 20 others. To control this, use an idea file as a way to harness all your brilliance without losing your train of thought. I used to keep an idea journal, but I'm so visual, if I don't see something, its gone from my mind, and all my ideas got buried. Now I use a cool open-topped wooden file box that came from my Dad's long-defunct printing plant. Added bonus is that I think of him every time I put in or pull out an idea.

7. Start With Negativity. I know, sounds counter-intuitive. But the idea is to just give into it. Rant and rave. Complain about how over-worked you are and how wretched your children are. Wail about how much you don't want to do everything on your to-do list. Write all your negative thoughts down, or think them, or shout them, whatever you want. Set a timer and limit it to five minutes. There. Now all the bad stuff is out of your brain, freeing you to write.

So there you have them, my best ideas to keep your brain clear while writing. Keep this list near your writing desk and add to it when you figure out more. Then remember to use them!

Want to Use This Article on Your Website, Blog, or Ezine?

Feel Free! Please, just be sure to include the following blurb with it:

Writer, mentor, and coach Charlotte Rains Dixon is passionate about helping writers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals succeed, achieve, and profit in their careers and lives through writing. Visit her for more tips and techniques on writing—and living—at www.charlotterainsdixon.com.

Ten-Minute Tip: Get Your Ya-Yas Out

Set a timer and write for 15 minutes about how awful the world is. It is unfair, stupid, upsetting crazy, violent, etc., etc. Go on, and on, and on about the horribleness of it all. Whatever you do, do not write anything positive, because that's cheating. Life's a bitch and then you die, so write it all out. When the timer goes off, go to your regular writing. See how much easier it all flows?

My Huckleberry Friend, Samuel Clemens, and Me

2011-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

In the early 1960s I worked on my master's thesis in English at what then was called California State College at Long Beach. In my thesis I examined the novels of William Dean Howells, and through this very sane gentleman, then known as the Dean of American Letters, became more interested in Samuel Clemens, Howells' closest friend. Through reading their voluminous correspondence I grew to know a lot about attitudes about suitable topics for novels in the late nineteenth century in both America and in England.

Those who have conversed with me recently know how I've rededicated some of my time to rereading Charles Dickens, who tackled every social issue in England during the early and mid nineteenth century. In our country, in the last half of the nineteenth century only Samuel Clemens had the courage to address prevailing attitudes towards blacks. This was the post Civil War period when antagonism towards so-called carpetbaggers and liberated blacks ran high.

I don't usually get embroiled in impassioned discussions on Facebook...but this piece of news set me on fire.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110105/en_ac/7534342_new_sanitized_edition_of_huckleberry_finn_to_be_published

So today I posted this today on Facebook:

What the Huck...have we all lost our literary minds? You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger...and you don't mess around with Finn!!

I got responses...from my old friend, Chris, who runs a bookstore, Once Read Books, in Long Beach:

From Chris Statler:

They're ignorant swine and don't understand the irony of using a derogatory name to describe and dehumanize a character who in fact is smarter, more human and wiser then the Southern crackers whom he is able to evade. You can hear Twain chu...ckling to himself as you read the book and certainly Tom and Huck reorganize Jim's wisdom and understanding of the river (life) and its complexities. Who in modern times best resembles Nigger Jim? Obama, he's smarter then his detractors and they resent a black man who is more human then they are. "nuff said. Someone needs to write an article called IS Obama nigger Jim?!!!!!
----------

And another, from my professor at UCLA, who taught Group Conflict and Change, a class that students referred to as Race Relations:

Dr. Alex J. Norman:

When I was in high school in Durham, NC we read Twain's Huck and although polite, we all cringed evertime we had to read the "N" word. I got through it but never had the desire to read more of Twain (I thought the use of the word was excess...ive). I thought then, as I do now, that it was simply a manner in which the society was reminded of the racist underpinnings of the country, and was a means of passing on prejudices (I think the same of "Birth Of A Nation"). Still, I don't believe that it should be censured, it is what it is--American Literature.

That said, any wonder why Twain didn't want his biography delayed until 100 years after his death?

---------------------

And various other responses from all over the map. I finally commented on my own comment:

I have Twain's unBowdlerized recently released autobiography on my Kindle. Twain makes it clear that he wanted to speak openly about his views about people after their children and grandchildren were long gone. Huckleberry Finn satirizes th...e insensitivity and ignorance of southerners of that period and reflects how children who hear racist putdowns and derogatory words all the time have difficulty forming their own views...witness Huck's continual struggle, should he believe what he hears from the others or what he sees in his relationship with Jim? This was a brave attempt, given the era. When I taught high school English I drew a parallel for students about Huck on the river and Holden Caulfield on the streets of New York, and how youth try to deal with adults' hypocricy and meanspiritedness,

Have you read Satire or Evasion? Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn? Several fascinating articles, mostly delineating how Twain, called by his friend, William Dean Howells, a "deSouthernized Southerner," struggled with his conscience in the same way that Huck does, and accepted personal responsibility for the American legacy of slavery, a practice that Samuel Clemens saw no use for or sense to and abhored.

Incidentally, I just read Sinclair Lewis' early novel, Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man, set in the late 1910s in NYC, and the "N" word is used casually by insensitive people even then. And this by the man who later wrote Kingsblood Royal, which Ebony in 1947 named Best Novel of the Year.

The "N" word, unfortunately, is not limited to Americans. I heard it every day in Belize, used by Creoles, descendants of Scots and British pirates and their West African slaves, in reference to the Garifuna. And in India the officers of the British Raj used the term in reference to the Indians.

All said, though, I believe that banning, burning and Bowdlerizing books is never a good thing. The very idea makes me want to... light out for the territory ahead...the closing words of Huckleberry Finn

The Territory Ahead, by Wright Morris, though written in the '70s is still one of the best books on American lit that I know of. Wright criticizes American writers (with the exception of Henry James) who celebrate the theme of flight from civilization as a failure to address pressing socio-cultural issues in the art.

Ice Land

2011-01-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

At 8 a.m. when I let the dogs back in after their morning frolic in the backyard I just stood in the doorway shivering uncontrollably. I scuttled to the computer and checked My Yahoo weather; it was exactly 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

I used to live on tropical islands, longing for air conditioning on sweltering southwest monsoon afternoons. Then I fell for a guy who insisted he could only be happy where there were four distinct and consecutive seasons. Ken really relished January, lolling on his recliner, watching his beloved westerns, exerting himself only to beam and announce, "I just love it here."

I'm not so sure I'd agree today. I'm too cold to think, let alone write, so I'll soon swaddle myself with quilts and finish T. R. Reid's "The Healing on America," for one book group and begin Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" for another. It should be warmer, albeit snowier, tomorrow. At least My Yahoo tells me so.

If my fingers thaw, over the next couple of weeks I plan to write:

1. A tribute to Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, for Uncle Jam.
2. A story about what makes me happy...two possible markets in mind.
3. A memoir about son Steve's wedding...and how I nearly missed it.
4. The aforementioned essay on happiness.

These trees in today's posted photo are in my side yard. They are what I gaze at when I'm working on the laptop in the backroom. Tomorrow their branches will be laden with snow once again. And it will be warmer.

Immortality and The Note Project

2011-01-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

“I understand [Willy Loman's] longing for immortality. Willy's writing his name in a cake of ice on a hot day, but he wishes he were writing in stone.” -- Arthur Miller

In earlier days I liked to haunt cemeteries. I never passed up a chance to roam and read the epitaphs. I paid my respects to my favorite writer, Charles Dickens, at the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. I pondered the terrifying fate of all those anonymous laborers who drowned off the California coast in the Chinese cemetery in Mendocino. One rainy afternoon I spent half an hour paying homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald in the tiny St. Mary's churchyard on Rockville Pike in Maryland. Now I reflect on how all these people have been remembered.

Christmas Week when I visited Tombstone, Arizona, my perspective about cemeteries shifted. The neat piles of rocks on more than 250 graves on the hill overlooking the old Western town commemorate brevity and brutality...women perishing in childbirth, gunslingers cut down in their twenties, hangings, drownings, massacres, stabbings, consumption, poisoning, suicides. Aside from a Confederate flag on Old Man Clanton's grave, I saw no tokens of remembrance such as I witnessed festooning Fitzgerald's final resting place, no flowers, no notes, no crosses. Just piles of stones.

All New Year's weekend I've been reflecting on how we live out our lives, and how we may or may not be remembered. On New Year's morning when Paula Deen waved to the crowds as Rose Parade Grand Master, my thoughts drifted towards those who rode in that position before. I looked up the list of previous Grand Masters for the Tournament of Roses. We may well remember Edgar Bergen, Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd, because their work is preserved for us on tape. But who, aside from family perhaps, remembers the doctors and colonels who dominated the early years of the event? Fame indeed can be fleeting.

Like Willie Loman, I'd like to write my name on something more substantial than a cake of ice on a hot day. My resolution for 2011 is to write more, if not on stone, at least on my laptop...more stories, more articles, and especially more notes to friends.

The Note Project, developed by Mike O'Mary of Dream of Things, invites everybody to participate by writing notes of appreciation. Mike's website says:

Become part of the ripple effect that will transform into a tsunami of good will in 2011!

WRITE A NOTE to someone you love today, and SHARE YOUR STORY with us here, so others will be inspired to do the same.

Check out the site and add your note here:

http://noteproject.com/

And, if you're ever in the Washington DC area, visit Fitzgerald's grave, which he shares with his wife, Zelda. The tombstone carries the final words from The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Pure Gold

2010-12-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

Since this has been my Dickens year, I've neglected to mention that "the man who invented Christmas" is not my only literary love. In the past I've devoted years to writers as diverse as D.H. Lawrence and William Dean Howells. And decades to Herbert Gold, the "elder statesman of the beat generation."

I first met the latter at novelist Carolyn See's Symposium of California Writers at Loyala Marymount in 1979. In those days I lived in Long Beach, CA, and wrote for an arts magazine, Uncle Jam. See pointed Gold out at an evening reception and said, "Go say hello to that handsome man. He's Herb Gold."

I nearly spilled my Pinot Noir. Gold's Salt: A Novel so moved me when it first appeared in 1963 that I made a diary entry: "Gold's writing is so electrifying that I'm convinced he'll one day win the Nobel Prize for Literature." Alas, he never did...but his close friend, Saul Bellow, did.

So I walked over to Gold and said, "I'd like to give you a hug to thank you for Salt." And always a gentleman, Gold hugged me in return.

Now Dickens, Howells or Lawrence never hugged me. And none of those writers phoned me up yesterday, either. But Herbert Gold did.

Throughout the '80s Gold and I kept in touch. Every time I'd visit my father in San Francisco, I'd give him a call. Once he took me to the San Francisco Press Club, and kissed me goodbye while we waited for the Market Street cable car to return me to Twin Peaks. Another time he came to the house on State Street to exchange stories about the Tenderloin with my dad who had operated night clubs there.

I sent Gold a copy of Uncle Jam with my tale of meeting Henry Miller at his 80th birthday party at a UCLA shebang. Gold sent me autographed copies of his books to offer at a Womenshelter auction. Every time he published a new book, I'd send a fan letter...even confessing that I was so irritated at the conclusion of Swiftie the Magician, that I flung the book across the room.

A quirky correspondent, Gold sent his notes on an assortment of postcards, some depicting the famed Haitian hangout of Graham Greene, The Hotel Oloffson, sometimes known as the Greenwich Village of Haiti. When I finally got to Port-au-Prince in 2001, where I was conducting a Peace Corps HIV/AIDS and Youth training on September 11, I stayed a night at the Oloffson, and bought a copy of the house band's latest cassette.

This past spring I read Gold's latest memoir, Still Alive!: A Feisty Bohemian Explores the Art of Growing Old. Though it had been a dozen years since I last contacted him, I wrote Gold a note and sent the RAM cassette to him. He responded, irreverent as ever.

When the earthquake hit Haiti earlier this year, I called Gold right away. He assured me that he had planned to return to Haiti sometime this year. It was still his favorite haunt. His Haiti: The Best Nightmare on Earth, details his love of the place. At one time Bill Clinton had offered him the ambassadorship there. He declined.

When I visited my son in Southern California this past summer I finally boxed up my hard-to-find these days Herbert Gold books that had been stored in his garage since I first went overseas with Peace Corps in 1987. I think they're worth something these days, as collector's items. But I intend to reread them all.

So why did Gold call me yesterday? I'd sent him a holiday card with a story about my late husband that will be published next year in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart. "Our Great Expectations" relates the final trip to UK that Ken and I took when he still could negotiate airports, and my Dickensian summer at Cambridge. Gold wanted to tell me that he was touched by the piece. Imagine! A man I consider the greatest living American male writer, bothered to call up an old acquaintance.

"Terri? It's Herb. I guess it's not necessary to say Gold, since nobody since 1929 has been named Herb. It would be like naming your son Adolph in the early '40s."

I wanted to know about Haiti. Gold did go, and his article will appear in The Hudson Review's upcoming issue. I intend to read it. And I'll send another fan note. I have a collection of notes and letters from Herbert. He told me to hold on to them, and maybe I could sell them someday. He confessed he's sold some letters from his correspondents. But he was quick with a disclaimer: "I don't do it while they're still alive."

I asked if he'd sold his letters from Bellow. "Nearly did, but the dealer wanted to barter and nickle-and-dime and it wasn't worth it."

Gold's leaving his own papers and correspondence to the Bancroft Library at Stanford. I plan to copy his notes and the photo or two I have, and mail them to Gold soon...I like the idea of being archived.

Talking yesterday with Herbert Gold, who will turn 87 in March, certainly brightened my day. Especially when Gold responded to my comment that I intended to return to Cambridge this next summer.

"Just make certain you don't fall for some tall, good-looking 23-year-old British undergrad who will offer to marry you for your money."

Here's links to commentary about Gold and to his piece about Allen Ginsberg, written for Salon not long after the poet's death.

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4362/Gold-Herbert.html

http://www.salon.com/april97/ginsberg970416.html

Young at Heart

2010-12-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

My spirits picked up after I learned that two of my stories will appear this next summer in Inspiration for the Young at Heart. One, "I Never Would Have Bet," recounts how I met Ken via Socialnet.com in the early days of computer dating. The other, "Our Great Expectations," concerns our relationship, and, surprise, surprise, my experiences at the University of Cambridge where I fulfilled a lifetime dream of studying Victorian history and literature.

I wrote the latter story one afternoon earlier this week, and after submitting it decided it could double as my 2010 Christmas letter. The next morning, as I was readying to print it out, I received an e-mail from Chicken Soup telling me it is a finalist for the book. Usually it takes weeks or months, and in a few cases even a year or more, to hear if a piece has been accepted. This instant notice helped lift me out of my Dickensian dismay...at least momentarily. So everybody on my Christmas card list will get a preview.

I'd mentioned earlier that I'd an idea for my novel in stories. Now I have one for a non-fiction book, as well...a format for finally putting together a marketable memoir. So in January I intend to prepare a couple of proposals and move forward with these two books. In the meantime, I have a few more anthology essays to create. I especially hope to write something suitable for the upcoming Thin Threads special edition, Women and Friendship.

The Thin Threads blog posted a story on turning on the light...I needed to read that story when I was so immersed in the gray days of last week. Here it is...it's heartwarming.

http://www.thinthreads.com/blog/?p=627

Bleak House

2010-12-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

This has not been the happiest of times. Here's the deal. This past month or so I've learned that my brother in January will begin undergoing radiation for prostate cancer. My sister in Santa Cruz, whose spinal stenosis keeps her wheelchair bound, canceled my proposed visit, claiming she just wasn't up to seeing me.

Then earlier this week I got a phone call from the wife of my half-brother, telling me he had died this past August of complications from melanoma. She'd just discovered my phone number on an old Christmas letter in one of his dresser drawers and wondered if I could notify some of the other relatives from his father's side of the family. She wondered if I had any memories I could share with their children of Albert or his and my father, Al. I mailed her two stories I'd written about our father, Daddy and Raggedy Ann, recently published in "Thin Threads: Compassion and Giving," and Foote Notes from My Father, which I've submitted to a few potential publishers.

Over the weekend I finally watched the Masterpiece Theater 2005 production of Charles Dicken's own Bleak House, three DVDs, each 2 hours and 25 minutes. It's got Gillian Anderson turning in a riveting performance as Lady Dedlock, and Carey Mulligan shimmering as Ada Clare. Though it might be the best production of a Dickens novel I've ever seen, it did little to lift my sagging spirits, even though (spoilers ahead) heroine Esther Summerson gets a "happily ever after," at its conclusion. Well, of course, it's Dickens typical Victorian conclusion...can't leave the folks in the provinces down in the dumps, after all.

To add to the melancholia and general malaise, the ice and snow have transformed my snug home into a true bleak house, gray and gloomy. Even the dogs and cats move listlessly around the living room, peering out at the frozen fog. Just look at the photo I took the other morning. I warned Ken when he ordered the painters to change the maroon trim to white that he was eliminating the only spot of color to brighten a winter day landscape. White on white.

So to try to segue into a more positive mood, I've concentrated on the future. I've browsed Holland America's website and selected three possible autumn cruises that cover Venice and the Greek islands that I've always wanted to visit, and sent a letter to a girlfriend with a suggestion that we consider scheduling one of them. I've poured over the 2011 Cambridge University summer catalog and nearly settled on some selections for this next summer.

And to take care of the present, I finally visited my doctor for a long overdue annual checkup, and am scheduled for a mammogram later this week.

So suddenly this morning the sun has burst through. Natty and Nami are enjoying the backyard winter wonderland. I'm crockpotting some meatballs for the annual AAUW FUNdraiser holiday party and silent auction this afteroon. Maybe I'll pick up some surprise Christmas gifts for grandbaby Kendra or her parents...I'll be seeing them soon for the holidays.

One more touch...I took down the autumn welcome sign and put up something cheerier...and a little more crimson.

New Year's Nearly Here

2010-11-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I still delighted in the first snowfall. Now, as I stare out the window, the freshly coated Currier and Ives landscape just looks cold and soggy. The problem is...it's not really winter yet. In fact, it's a whole month shy. So I'm not tickled with the arctic storm with accompanying single digit temperatures that's roaring in this weekend. Right now there's a light dusting of snow on the lawns. There will be more flurries over the next few days, followed by a week of icy sunshine. This signals the end of my walks around the Loop with Natty, at least until spring.

The good news is that the young man who mows my lawn dropped by yesterday and for three solid hours he and his girlfriend raked up the autumn leaves blanketing the side and back yards, and toted them to the bonfire pile in the pasture. The lawns won't be smothered by sodden leaves when everything thaws in the spring. I'm a little better prepared this year, since I got most of the bushes and shrubs trimmed back early, and over a hundred new tulip and daffodil bulbs set.

So maybe I can stop worrying about the yard and the weather and concentrate on getting some writing done in December. I've yet to write "Forgiving Charles Dickens" or "Get Me to the Church in Time." And I've got to finish interviewing Peter S. Beagle by e-mail for a story about his terrific comeback with a series of new novels and stories. I also want to write about reunions and rejections.

So it's coming up Thanksgiving week...time to count blessings.

Nat and Nami passed their annual physicals, and the vet says they are in good shape for senior citizen canines.
The cats have fluffed up, so will be able to withstand the colder temperatures.
I finished editing "Wine Wherever" and e-mailed the completed manuscript yesterday.
I've secured a housesitter so I can spend Christmas in Arizona with my stepgranddaughter and her parents.
I've thought of a format for my "novel" in short stories...and plan to begin writing the connected episodes in January.

Okay, winter...here's the deal. It may be cold and soggy outside. In front of my laptop, I'm always warm and dry. So let it snow. There's days I still may find it delightful.

Choosing Shoes Blues

2010-11-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

A fashion maven I'm not. I'm inclined towards jeans and sweaters, loafers and tennies. Nonetheless, I share Carrie Bradshaw's love of fancy shoes...so long as they're worn by others. The last heels I wore was to my son's wedding in 1989, and that was just for the first part of the evening, until we all started to dance.

Nonetheless, I learned this morning that my story about the days my father worked weekends in the Sears and Roebuck shoe department at Slauson and Vermont in Los Angeles has been selected for an upcoming anthology for shoe lovers. It will be published by Princess Dominique, the company that bills itself as "the epitome of all things beautiful."

I'm looking forward to learning when the book will be available, and what it's title will be.

Check out this terrific blog:

http://www.princessdominique.com/fashionblog/

Patience Pending

2010-10-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Christina Katz, who publishes The Prosperous Writer, has committed this year's 52 columns to discussing qualities writers should possess. This is Week 39, and she addresses patience.

She writes: The definition of patience describes the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

Can you bear it? Can you remain calm in the face of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like?

Oh, dear. Just this morning I snarled at Harpo, my marmalade cat, when he leaped up on the back of the chair and clawed my shoulder as I sat at my computer, finger poised to poke "send" to submit an entry to yet another anthology. It didn't help that Natty, the mutt, had wedged his snout between the armrest and my left wrist, or that Nami, the Akita, flanked my right side, panting heavily and licking my cheek. Then the Internet connection dissolved, and I gave up.

"Que sera," I hummed, dragged out the leashes. I took the felines and canines for a stroll through the back pasture. I combed Nami, who has entered a new shedding season, tossed some windfall apples to my neighbor's horses, breathed in some crisp October air and reconsidered.

Was my essay really ready to go out? Did it need revising or at least a little tweaking? Was I rushing to submit because I'm about ready to take off for Southern California for a visit with friends and relatives?

By the time I got back in the house the Internet mysteriously had reconnected. I looked through my piece. Nope. It was good to go. This time the animals flopped in the hallway and left me in peace. The story's off now into ether space.

Now here's where the real patience comes into play...the part that Christina didn't mention. The deadline for the piece I submitted today isn't until next March. Then it will be another month or so before the editor lets the writers know if they've been accepted. If I'm lucky and get accepted, several months more will pass before the book is printed. More time might elapse before I get my contributor's copy and/or a check.

Over two years ago I submitted a story that got accepted. The publisher kept pushing back the date of the book's appearance. Finally last month I got the book and the check. In another case, in mid-2008 I was delighted to learn a piece would be published in an Irish anthology for caregivers. I sent in my bio and waited. Five months ago I got an update...the book would be printed sometime this summer. It's now nearly November and the editor doesn't respond to my inquiries.

How do writers find the patience to deal with these endless delays and perpetual states of suspense? I rely on "the more the merrier." I submit stories to multiple publications, whenever it's allowed. I rewrite and resubmit my "orphans," stories previously rejected. And I try to come up with at least one or two new stories every month, no matter what else is circulating out there.

This morning when I snapped at my annoying beast, I'd had a morning filled with one frustration after another. It wasn't my dogs' fault they wanted an outing and some attention. They're human, too. Well...nearly. Hard-hearted Harpo's another matter though. He's sometimes just plain mean. It's his nature. He's a tom cat.

I realize that all this harping about Harpo and having to wait a year or two for a book or a check is silly, though, taking into consideration how long Samuel Clemens scholars and fans have waited for the publication of The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Clemens wanted his unexpurgated, unBowdlerized book to be published a century after his death in 1910. Various online book vendors advertise the book as available anywhere between October 29 and November 15. I've waited over fifty years for this book myself since reading the earlier heavily edited autobiography in the early sixties. And guess what? Thanks to technology, I just downloaded it onto my Kindle five minutes ago. I'll be reading it in on my trip to Southern California, at long, long, long last.

Some things are worth being patient about!

Sweet Sorrow

2010-10-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I love writing inspirational stories for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cup of Comfort, Patchwork Path and Thin Threads, but not every story has a happy ending. And in my life, there's been some sadder experiences waiting to be told.

Not long ago at a membership meeting of the Colville branch of AAUW (American Association for University Women), we did a "getting to know you" exercise. Each of us revealed what is her favorite song and why. I wouldn't have guessed this in advance, but John Lennon's "In My Life," immediately came to mind. I've always been haunted by the lyrics...not the refrain of "in my life I love you more," but this:

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them...

I think about those people, places and things all the time these days. I recall once learning in a psychology class about how older people do a kind of "life review." I'm that Older Person now. For the past four years I've successfully reviewed my life through writing my anthology stories. But I'm not Pollyanna, the Glad Girl. I can't find a silver lining to every event or experience.

So what do I do with these bittersweet or edgier stories that may not be altogether inspirational? Mike O'Mary answered that question for me, and other writers, when he established Dream of Things for creative non-fiction. This new series of anthologies provides an outlet for those of us who want to go just a little deeper in our self-examinations.

http://dreamofthings.com/

My story, "Dreaming as the Summers Die," appears in this beautiful new book, Saying Goodbye: to the people, places and things in our lives. I'm delighted to be part of this literary debut and look forward to writing other stories for this new series.

The official book launch is Monday, but Saying Goodbye already is available at Amazon.com. Here's the site:

http://www.amazon.com/Saying-Goodbye-people-places-things/dp/0982579446/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286554344&sr=1-1

Two Rib Bones and Three Bowls of Borscht

2010-09-24T08:39:00.001-07:00

Today's Tsunami's eighth birthday. Doesn't she look contented after chewing away for an hour on a Safeway rib bone? I got one for Natty, too, and at $4.96 each, I could have bought myself a couple of rib eye steaks. (Ken, wherever you may be, please notice that I'm still spoiling "the children.")

Sometimes when I'm trying to put a story together, I get stuck. That's what happened to the tale about a fifth anniversary trip to Canada. Somehow finally it all came together in the predawn hours today before Natty forced me out of bed so he could get outside to chase a deer who had leaped the back fence in hopes of scoring a few windfall Delicious apples. So now all I have to do is let the story tell itself...it's called "Three Bowls of Borscht," and involves some wonderful treks to Grand Forks, BC.

Earlier this week I finished "Why Did Cynthia Slap Me?" and fired it off. Over the weekend I plan to tackle "Forgiving Charles Dickens." And I finally have a story in mind for Dream of Things collection on sports, "It's Only a Game." I had to reach all the way back to 1959 when I picked up a trophy for "ladies third place" in a handicap bowling league!

Lost in the Fifties...and WOW

2010-09-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

So here I am, my first semester at Compton College, my smile captured fifty five years ago by the man who became my first husband, Bob Elders. He took photography in the same building where my journalism classes were held.

This weekend I slipped back to the fifties and sixties. My time travel started when I picked up Terry Ryan's captivating recap of her mom's efforts to keep a family of ten children afloat through contest entries. The book's title sums it up, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less." I well remember the era, as I first married in 1955. I never became an avid submitter, but did win a prize in at least one of these skills contests before sweepstakes replaced them. I received a cardboard soft drink stand, and my son, Steve, and his pals peddled Funny Face from it off and on in front of Circle Gardens apartments in Long Beach, CA, on hot summer Saturdays.

I didn't see the movie made from Ryan's book when it appeared a few years back, but have moved it to the top of my Netflix list. Those were simpler days...less technology, fewer expectations. Postage stamps cost only four cents. Like Evelyn Ryan, I didn't drive in those days either...didn't get my license until I had to in 1967 to go to work for Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services. I walked to the grocery store and post office, rode my bike to Cal State Long Beach and the Los Altos library...and took the bus to Jordan High, where I taught English and Journalism. Or Bob would drive me to where I needed to go.

Just as I was recalling those days, I got a telephone call from an old Lynwood High School classmate. She's compiling a mini-anthology for a reunion next month. I transferred to Lynwood in January, 1954, too late for class photos. She wondered if I had something from that period that I could scan and send her. So I spent hours digging through the duffle bag where I store old photos, to come up with one from that time period. Every three or four years I plow through this bag. I've always hoped to take a weekend to sort out the photos, but never have. There's ones dating back to my early childhood, to my son's childhood, to my early teens. Photos from my 1955 honeymoon in Catalina. I spent more happy hours reminiscing.

But now I return to today. Today I appear as the first featured guest columnist in Publishing Syndicate's WOW Principles Newsletter. In this article I detail how I hope to turn my experience at the University of Cambridge into stories for a variety of publications. Here's the link to the newsletter:

http://www.PublishingSyndicate.com/PS/wownewscurrent.pdf

I've listed a dozen or so possible stories I plan to create, using my Cambridge experiences. And I intend to follow up on these good intentions...just as soon as I finish two stories that need writing first...one about a humbling experience in seventh grade, and one about borscht.

The story about my transfer to Lynwood appears this month in Whispering Angel's Living Lessons.

http://www.whisperingangelbooks.com/

Enough Frivolity & Merriment...Back to Basics

2010-09-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's not that I've not left London. Here's visual proof: Heather, my English pal, and me sharing a farewell feast of chili at The Marquis pub, not far from Victoria Station. After lunch she headed back to Weston-super-Mare and I returned to Colville, WA. But London has not yet left me, particularly Charles Dickens' version of it. My Victorian summer continues, even though the maple leaves have turned red. I'm still watching Masterpiece Theater's production of Our Mutual Friend, and Netflix will be sending Little Dorrit once I'm finished with this series.

I've strayed from writing these past few days...went to the newly opened A Club in Spokane to hear Jason Webley, with his music that tears itself apart, and to the local Alpine Theater to see Javier Bardem steal Eat Pray Love from Julia Roberts. Sunday night, while fires roared in the nearby Shiloh hills, I savored a platter of shrimp and sausage at my first ever Shrimp Boil. I've even partially cleared out a mountain of e-mail that had accumulated while I was in England.

Now, though, if I can shoo away the cats and quiet the dogs, it's time to chain myself to the laptop and commit to writing these stories:

Fifth anniversary trip to Canada
Going back to school at age 73
Forgiving Charles Dickens
Botanical gardens, Seychelles, Mauritius and Cambridge
Meanness...and I have a title for this one, "Why Did Cynthia Slap Me?"
Times of Trouble...family misfortune
Museum of Childhood

My goal: to have all of these tales written before I leave for Southern CA on October 20.

Autumn Aubade

2010-09-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

"Believe in yourself, your neighbors, your work, your ultimate attainment of more complete happiness. It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in Autumn. "
--B. C. Forbes

After three days of rain I almost feel as if I'm still back in England, sloshing around the gardens at Selwyn College, umbrella in hand. I had to tote that same lightweight Holland America umbrella when I trotted around Pend Oreille Loop with Natty yesterday afternoon.

Recent news, both national and personal, has dismayed me. My brother has somber health issues, a colleague recently took his own life, my sister had been hospitalized with pneumonia and is mostly bedridden with spinal stenosis. Other acquaintances have lost their jobs and my son's closest friend from high school just suffered a stroke. My spirits simply are sodden with sadness.

Yesterday I acknowledged that summer wasn't likely to recur...even though here in NE WA we traditionally enjoy a fifth season, an Indian Summer of exquisite glory. That's usually in October, though. In the meantime, it's September, the month celebrated in song with rain and regret. So I replaced the smiling summer bossy to the right of my front door, the cheerful cow welcome sign, and replaced it with my autumn scarecrow trio.

Yesterday a friend, also lamenting the too-soon change of seasons, posted Jo Stafford's '50s version of Early Autumn on Facebook. Take a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMzRr9faOR0

So, on "A winding country lane" that's not quite yet "all russet brown," early this morning my Akita, Tsunami, and I strolled in the September rain. Because Tsunami's about 115 pounds of stubborn muscle, I often need both hands free sometimes to manage her leash. So no umbrella...I made do with my old hooded navy jacket that Ken bought me in Sitka on our Alaska cruise a few years ago. For somebody who writes stories for anthologies that feature uplifting, inspirational tales, I felt pretty downcast as we set out.

When Nami and I turned at the corner and headed back towards the house, I noticed my zinnias, bold, brilliant and brave, even in the drizzle. There's been no frost yet...so I'm grateful for their dazzle, and hope they'll stick around for a few more days. I don't mind autumn...it's just that I dread winter. I've always loved the snow from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day. Then I wish it would melt, but here it doesn't. It lingers on until mid-March, sometimes even April. But the sight of those brazen zinnias has so cheered me I've decided to give myself an afternoon away from my computer.

Instead, I'll bake some butterscotch cookies to take to my book club tomorrow. I'm facilitating a discussion of Dickens' Oliver Twist. Often we try to match the refreshments to the book, but I doubt that my fellow readers would relish bowls of gruel. So the sweet maple scent of those cookies baking should raise my spirits.

I'll spend the afternoon reading Maggie O'Farrell's The Distance Between Us. It's billed as a modern day Victorian Gothic...so I'll stay in genre. Then this weekend I'll write my essay on forgiving Charles Dickens.

And today I'll forgive Mother Nature.

Never Count Your Chickens....

2010-08-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

A writer friend recently asked if I'd ever had a story tentatively accepted for an anthology, then not make the final cut.

"Yes, and I'm still trying to learn to not count my chickens before they hatch," I confessed.

Recent example: Several months ago I got a permission release for one of my favorite stories, "Choosing Shoes Blues," from Chicken Soup for the Soul. It was being considered for Family Matters. I'd not been in the Chicken coop since last year's What I Learned from the Cat, so was tickled, and immediately began to think of who in our family would love to receive this book for Christmas. Shortly thereafter I got an additional permission request for "From Nuisance to Blessing," for Think Positive.

"Wowser! Two books for holiday gifts!!"

Not quite. I began to realize I hadn't seen the page proofs for the Family Matters book and the publication date was approaching fast. Sure enough, I opened my e-mail one morning and there was an update: I'd been cut at the last minute.

Nonetheless, I continued to "Think Positive," and that book will appear in September. I've also been asked to sign permission slips for a couple of stories for Chicken's Grieving and Recovery, and will keep my drumsticks crossed.

I've had three other instances of making the finals for other prospective books, and then been cut. I've found homes for two of those stories, but still am looking for a place for my tale that didn't edge into The Ultimate Gardener. I've also had stories accepted by books that never quite materialized...some because of the recession, some because a similar collection had been published earlier.

Am I bothered by rejection? Well, nobody likes to get turned down. Nonetheless, I like to reassure myself that it's always a judgment call. What might be one editor's "not for me," might be another's "yes, indeedy." Others have shared that thought:

"I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, to hell with you."-Saul Bellow

"The vital point to remember is that the swine who just sent your pearl of a story back with nothing but a coffee-stain and a printed rejection slip can be wrong. You cannot take it for granted that he is wrong, but you have an all-important margin of hope that might be enough to keep you going."- Brian Stableford

"We keep going back, stronger, not weaker, because we will not allow rejection to beat us down. It will only strengthen our resolve. To be successful there is no other way." -Earl Graves

Great, Greater, Greatest

2010-08-19T00:34:00.001-07:00

So...which was the best musical I saw this week on the West End?

"Avenue Q" is billed as the greatest musical of the decade. I'd say it might be the funniest. When the Miss Piggy parody character is hospitalized as Slut, Lucy The, I broke into laughter. Since I had a first row seat, the Gary Coleman character eyed me during "Give Us Your Money," and nodded invitingly. I shook my forefinger, Belizean style, signifying no. "How about a date?" he offered with a wink. I gave him a thumbs up. But a few minutes later I caught him cheating with Lucy The Slut, so I didn't wait at the stage door.

"Oliver!" supposedly is the most lavish staging yet of this perennial Dickens favorite. I'd say it well deserves that accolade and more. Gravelly-voiced Bill Hartley certainly gave me shudders and shivers...easily the scariest villain I've seen since Heath Ledger's The Joker. My only complaint is that the musical's ending is so different from the book's...the London bobbies really didn't carry pistols in those days, and Sykes didn't have Oliver with him when he met his end. Nonetheless, I loved the antics of the Artful Dodger and wept for poor doomed Nancy, who stood by her man.

And "Jersey Boys"? I didn't stop tapping my feet and pounding rhythm on my knees for the entire two and a half hours. I may have learned more about the Four Seasons performers than I'd ever wanted to know, though...and had no idea that they were all born before me. Apparently their promoter shaved a few years off their ages to make them more appealing to the teenage record-buying public back in the day.

My recommendation? See 'em all...and more if you have time.

Murder, He Said

2010-08-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I shared a ride with a fellow Dickens student to the National Express bus stop in Cambridge, arriving about an hour and a half before my scheduled 11 a.m. ride to London. I woke up with an annoying sore throat and sniffles, and hoped to get to my London hotel as soon as possible to spend the day resting before my friend arrives tomorrow for our whirlwind sightseeing spree.

The 10 a.m. bus soon arrived but the driver apologetically explained that his bus was fully booked, and he couldn't take me. Because I had a reduced "Fun Fare" rate I had to travel on the specific bus on my ticket. I'd have to wait for another hour. I wheezed, sneezed and nodded, smiling woefully.

A few minutes before 10, he stepped out and began to close the luggage compartment, then glanced my way. I was perched on the little railing, partially sheltered from the drizzle, reading "The Suspicions on Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House," by Kate Summerscale. This book recounts the true story of an 1860 child murder that captured the public attention in England the way the Lindbergh kidnapping did in America decades later.

"Good read, that?" the young man asked.

"Yes," I said, fishing for a Kleenex.

"Oh, hop on," he said. "A few people haven't shown up, and I can squeeze you in. You might as well read in comfort."

"Thank you so very much."

"My pleasure," he said, "I'm a big follower of murder mysteries."

We nodded at each other companionably as I clambered aboard.

Hey, I just love England.

Our Revels Now Are Ended....

2010-08-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

at least at Cambridge for this summer. Today's the last day of classes, so we took group shots with the professors. In the photo below Ulrike Horstmann-Guthrie, the knowledgeable Victorian expert who taught "Criminals and Gentlemen or The Victorian Underworld in Dickens's Oliver Twist and Great Expectations," is the tall cool blonde in the middle...I'm the short grinning-like-a-loon brunette on her left.

In the photo on the bottom Dr. Sean Lang is seated at the right. I'm to his immediate left. He got a resounding round of applause at the conclusion of both "The British Empire in Film and Literature" and "The Victorians and Their World."

Tonight we have a formal dinner by candlelight and will receive our official certificates of attendance at the University of Cambridge. I'm meeting new friends from Switzerland, Australia, Germany, France, China and Denmark for drinks at the bar before...and we may conclude the evening with a trek to the Anchor or the Eagle for a final farewell pint.

With great pride I add the University of Cambridge's Selwyn College to the list that already includes Compton College, California State University at Long Beach and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Other part time gigs where I've taken up residence include The University of Santa Fe, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Loyola-Marymount. But there's something special for me to be able to casually mention that I've studied Victorian literature and history at Cambridge. Tomorrow...London!!

What the Dickens....

2010-08-09T07:58:00.001-07:00

Above is the dining hall at Selwyn College, where I'm daily served scrumptious full English breakfasts, including the proverbial grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, and porridge so thick that it would make poor Oliver Twist sigh in envy.

Supper starters have included baked mozzarella with cranberry sauce, crayfish and mango salad and English summer soup, as light and feathery as a celery frill. Entrees range from salmon risotto to sirloin steak to tarragon chicken, all doused with ketchup by some of the international students from China. (I'm reminded of a colleague who drank his tempura dipping sauce at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles, thinking it was soup.) I've exhibited unusual dining habits as well, as I'm yet to be able to manage a knife and fork in the English manner, no matter how hard I try.

So far I've learned more about Dickens, the British Empire and the Victorians than I'd anticipated I possibly could in so short a time. For instance...

English gardens of the Victorian era took on geometrical shapes to show that nature could adhere to science, and be tamed and shaped.
Kipling wrote, "To be English is to win first prize in the lottery of life."
Cricket was a democratic game played in villages where the local blacksmith or butcher could bowl out the lord of the manor.
The entire idea of celebrating birthdays as momentous occasions was a European concept that England transferred to its colonies.
Queen Victoria was the first person ever to appear on a postage stamp, and the word "England" did not need to appear on these stamps, since her image was iconic.
David Livingston, the great missionary who carried "liberation" to the heart of Africa actually converted only one solitary person.
Millicent Fawcett, a Suffragist, used political power to get women the vote in 1918, unlike the militant Suffragettes who had taken to bombing empty buildings.
Public health became a matter of concern in 1842 after Edwin Chadwick, later knighted, wrote a tract called "The Report of the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring People in Great Britain," which became a huge best seller.
In Oliver Twist it's ludicrous that Dickens, who spent his career championing the downtrodden, devoted so much reflection to the idea that character can be read by physiognomy, "nature being written on his face."
The adoption law in England wasn't passed until 1924, so the "adoptions" of Oliver by Mr. Brownlow, and Estella by Miss Havisham in Great Expectations were informal philanthropic acts.
In Dickens lifetime the population of London increased 2.5 times!

Finally, today, after several days of clouds and rain, the sun broke through, so a classmate could snap this photo of me below in front of the flowers in the Selwyn College garden.

The rest of this week I'll be reading Jeremy Tabling's Going Astray: Dickens and London, and hope to do a Dickens walk while I'm in London next week...if I have time. I'll be seeing two musicals, Avenue Q and Oliver! as well as visiting the Grace Kelly exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum and seeing the newly opened apartments at Buckingham Palace, all pre-booked by my friend Heather from Weston-super-Mare.

British History for Dummies

2010-08-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm delighted to have two classes with Dr. Sean Lang, author of British History for Dummies, who sang a number of Victorian hymns to the class today, after enacting the roles of Catholic priests and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to contrast the differences in sacraments.

http://www.amazon.com/British-History-Dummies-Illustrated-Sean/dp/0470994681/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281387072&sr=1-2

Secret Loves

2010-08-02T22:18:00.001-07:00

What could be better than starting my day learning that my first attempt at fiction will appear in an anthology?

I'm delighted to read that Michy Devon of Twin Trinity Press will include "Secret Love" in her Expressions of Pain collection.

Here is what she says in her Accentuate Writers blog:

Secret Love, by Terri Elders – This story is sweet and sad at the same time, and while it definitely shows regrets, it’s also not shoved in the reader’s face. We see the lead character regret, and then we see her secret love with his regret too. The last line of this story made me snort out laughter, and that doesn’t happen too much. I loved the way we were expecting, “Ah! Finally!” but then only to find out, nope, can’t happen. LOL Great job!

Here's the first line of my story:

“You’re 15, right, babe? So you can catch grunion without a fishing license?”

Oh...and the answer to my initial question...what could be better...is to down a full English breakfast in the Hall at Selwyn College, Ann's Court, University of Cambridge, then skitter off to back-to-back classes in the "British Empire in Literature and Film" and "The Victorians and Their World," both taught by the dynamic professor Sean Lang. This man, simultaneously erudite and entertaining, might be my new "secret love."

My Room in Ann's Court, Selwyn College

2010-08-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

Here's my room at Selwyn College, Ann's Court, where I'll be living for the next two weeks.

My room contains a closet with a few hangers…glad I brought three more from home, a bookcase, a red reading chair, a round table with a plug-in tea caddy, a spacious desk with three drawers and a table lamp, a bulletin board with the same red fabric as the chair, a single bed, a bedside table with a locking drawer, a bureau with three drawers, and a bookcase with three shelves, about the size of the bookcase Grandpa Elders made for me.

The furniture is blond, and the red and orange drapes match the bedspread. The bathroom has a large walk-in shower and an automatic motion-operated light. I spent five frustrating minutes searching for a switch to turn it off, then went in and flopped on the bed to read another chapter of Victoria R.I. and was pleasantly surprised when the light finally when out by itself.

The room is large enough that it could be pleasant to live and study in for a year, with paintings and personal belongings to brighten it. The large double window opens on to a view of the central court, filled with enormous shade trees.

Everything is bright and new at Ann’s Court, unlike me. I may be bright, but I'm far from new. Fortunately, I've spotted a dozen or more around the registration site who seem to be 50 or over...and met a couple who are nearing mid-60s.

Tonight after our inaugural suppers at our colleges about a hundred of us from Special Studies (my track), Shakespeare, and Medieval Studies, are marching up Sidgwick Avenue to the River Cam, where we'll hoist a pint at the Anchor Pub.

From Nuisance to Blessing

2010-07-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive will be on sale September 28. It's available on Amazon.com for preorder now, for $10.08.

http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Soup-Soul-Inspirational-Blessings/dp/1935096567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279995650&sr=1-1

This book contains a story I initially called "Oh, Fudge...Another Nudge," about how Ken's furry Flour Mill mutt, Natty, dragged me into daily walks around Pend Oreille Loop. The vet, who is also my neighbor, told me Natty needed to lose some weight. Who doesn't, I thought to myself, but got out the leash. I've lost ten pounds...won't know how much Natty has shed until early December when he goes in for his shots.

The editors at Chicken Soup renamed the tale "From Nuisance to Blessing," which is how I described my change of attitude towards this particular animal. Now, despite that the temperature's edging toward 90, we're off for a trot, good old Natty and me.

Thin Threads

2010-07-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

It looks as if I've hit a triple with the Thin Threads series. I just learned this morning that my story about having double pneumonia as a young child, "Daddy and Raggedy Ann," will be included in the upcoming Special Edition, Thin Threads: Compassion and Giving.

Yesterday I received word from Ellen Gerst that she reads the opening of my story, "Winging It," which will appear in Thin Threads: Grief and Renewal, on You Tube...see link below.

http://www.facebook.com/l/44523Mkd9-Jd9F8DNfllQjyzirw;www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-EZ8U8CUCU

Additionally, "Kisses for Mr. Castle" will be published in Thin Threads: Teachers and Mentors.

These Special Editions will be available in September through www.thinthreads.com/

Why I Haven't Had Time for the Blog...

2010-07-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

No, it's not simply those hazy, lazy days of summer. I've got a legitimate excuse for falling behind on my writing. For the nonce, I've been reading. Well, and watching DVDs...but it's serious study, not just hapless self-indulgence. Honest!

On July 29 I fly to England to attend the University of Cambridge International Summer School. For two weeks I'll be living at Selwyn College, Ann's Court, and taking three courses. For the past several weeks I've been preparing for studying with people from all over the world.

The British Empire in Literature and Film.

So far I've watched Four Feathers (the Heath Ledger 2002 version...couldn't get the original from Netflix), and the first three episodes of The Jewel in the Crown. Later today I'll watch David Lean's A Passage to India. I've read a biography of Kipling, Forster's A Passage to India, and Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Today I'm reading H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.I still have to read John Buchan's Mr. Standfast and Greenmantle, Paul Scott's sequel to the Raj Quartet, Staying On and Kipling's Kim.

Criminals and Gentlemen: The Victorian Underworld in Dicken's Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.

I've reread Oliver Twist and will begin Great Expectations Wednesday while waiting for the plane to take me to Seattle for the Medical Commission meeting. Hope to finish it by the weekend. I've also read portions of Going Astray: Dickens and London, a street by street synopsis of the settings of each of Dickens' novels.

The Victorians and Their World.

So far I've read all 620 pages of A.N. Wilson's monumental study, The Victorians. I've got three books more to finish, which might not happen until I'm actually in England. I've dipped into Marriage and Morals among the Victorians and Inventing the Victorians. I may finish Victoria R.I. before I leave.

The University maintains an online student forum. Through that I've hooked up with a group that will meet Sunday night, August 1, for drinks at the Anchor Pub, on the River Cam.

Additionally, I've learned which evening lectures will be given. So many of these sound appealing. I plan to attend as many as I have energy for:

Cambridge Ancient and Modern: The Architecture of the University
A View of England: John Betjeman, a Very English Poet Laureate
The Victorian Garden - The Quest for the Best
From Lapis Lazuli to Laundry Powder: The Alchemy of Colour
An Introduction to Julius Caesar
New Meanings, New Colours: Painting the Thames
Undertanding the British Hero Figure: from Boudica to Bond, and Beyond
Engineers and Alchemists: The Accidental Makers of Modern Science

Although there's an excursion to Oxford and one to Stratford for Julius Caesar scheduled for Saturday, August 7, I decided to stay in town and take a walking tour of Cambridge. I'd learned that the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival runs in July and August. So I booked a ticket for Twelfth Night, which will be staged in the gardens of nearby Robinson College. I inquired on the Student Forum if anybody else would like to go to this with me, and so far two women have indicated interest, a secondary school teacher from France and an undergrad from India.

When I leave Cambridge on Saturday, August 14, I'll take the train to London, and stay at a little hotel near Victoria Station. My friend, Heather Bird, plans to come up from Weston-super-Mare (near Bristol) and we may see a play together. Her timetable is uncertain, contingent on a couple of jobs she's applied for, so I'm leaving my days open for now, in case she can stay a few additional days beyond the weekend. I do plan to see the Grace Kelly exhibit at the Victoria and Albert, and booked a ticket for the matinee performance of Oliver! at the Royal Drury Lane Theatre for Wednesday, August 18. I fly back on the 19th.

With this immersion in Victoriana I've recognized that:

Dickens indeed was a champion for the underclass and alternated horror with hilarity.
I'm appalled by the overarching theme of British racial superiority and entitlement.
Victoria herself wasn't nearly so Victorian as her peers.

All Summer in a Day

2010-07-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury's short story told of a class of nine-year-olds on the planet Venus where nobody could recall a time when there wasn't rain...except Margot, who had moved there from Earth. She wrote:
I think the sun is a flower
That blooms for just one hour.

Yesterday appears to have been that sunny day. Today, the first of July, the temperature hasn't reached the mid-60s, and gusty winds prevent me from taking Natty for a walk around the entire Loop. There's rain predicted for tomorrow.

Ten years ago Ken Wilson and I got married on a very sunny July 1 afternoon in Sparks, NV. Hubbin 'n' Wipe appears in Patchwork Path's Wedding Bouquet, http://www.patchworkpath.com/index.php/patchwork-path-books/wedding-bouquet

Here's my tale of that glorious day:

For a year Ken and I had courted long distance, he in Reno, Nevada, me in Little Rock, Arkansas. And now our cross-country, Internet-augmented, Sunday morning phone-date romance would culminate in a millennial wedding. On Valentine’s Day, after Ken officially proposed, we consulted a calendar and set Saturday, July 1, 2000 as the official Big Day.

Both in our sixties, with other marriages behind us, we agreed that this would be an informal ceremony, a joyful afternoon affair at Ken’s son’s house just outside Reno. We wanted family, friends, food, and festivity. Like any bride, though, I hoped for perfection. Ken just hoped for a party.

To ensure that perfection I listed every task that needed tending in columns headed Mine and His. Under Mine I jotted down invitations, color scheme, decorations, clothes, guest book, flowers, program. I could arrange all of these from a distance.

Under the His column I scribbled rings, cake, notifying friends, and, locating someone to conduct the exchange of vows. Those items all needed a Reno on-site supervisor, so Ken would have to be in charge.

I e-mailed Ken the list, and he replied right away. The ring issue was a no-brainer, he wrote. He knew a local jeweler who could fashion our unique gold nugget matching bands. Rick, his son, worked at Costco, so he would order the cake, a carrot sheet cake, just like I said I wanted. It could have Congratulations scrawled in bright yellow against the white butter icing.

The next morning I got more news. Ken had phoned all of his friends to let them know the date and place. His best friend from fifth grade, his roommates from college, old business acquaintances and even his barber of twenty years…they would all be there! I could envision Ken’s eyes twinkling. Party!

On our next Sunday chat I asked about who would perform the ceremony. “Don’t worry,” Ken reassured me. “We’re all set. I picked a guy out of the yellow pages, and he’s got us down on his calendar for July 1 at 2. All you have to do is just show up.”

I smiled to myself. I’d been indulging my “second time around” bridal fantasies. Behind the scenes I’d inching down the Mine column, and obsessing about my cream, yellow and gold color scheme. I’d ordered my lacy cream-colored dress from the Candlelight & Champagne pages of the Woman Within catalog. I’d cajoled my son to pack his pale yellow Mexican wedding shirt when he flew to Reno from Southern California to give me away. I had congratulated my best friend, Linda, for locating a gold satin dress for her turn as my maid of honor. Perfect!

I’d combed the North Little Rock Tuesday Morning shop for yellow paper plates, napkins, and cutlery, and for gold crepe paper to make garlands to be festooned above the alcove off Rick’s living room where I envisioned the ceremony taking place. I emitted a joyous yip when I located a suitable guestbook, with hearts and roses emblazoned against a lemon background. Impeccable!

I wanted everybody to have a program as a souvenir, and chose wheat parchment paper that could be rolled into skinny scrolls and tied with gold grosgrain ribbon. The program itself looked positively regal, with everybody involved in the ceremony listed in Engraver’s Old English font. Flawless!

I wanted my son to escort me to the alcove to the strains of Mendelssohn’s Processional, recorded decades earlier by my grandfather, Jesse Crawford, “The Poet of the Organ”, on the Mighty Wurlitzer. Unsurpassed!

For the introduction of the ceremony itself, I’d located a passage from A. J. Cronin on miracles, which Ken’s youngest son, Darren, would deliver. Nothing mawkish, maudlin or mundane: no Elizabeth Barrett Browning, no Kahlil Gibran, no Velveteen Rabbit rants on what is real. Then after the vows, he would read the reassuring lines from The Blessing of the Apache, “Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other.” Immaculate!

Ken sent another e-mail. Still focusing on the party aspects, he’d powwowed with his sons. During the champagne reception, barbecue and conviviality following the ceremony, Rick would play love songs recorded from his Classic Rock era collection, and Scott, the eldest, would supervise the production of the food. Fiesta!

The morning of the wedding itself we picked up my son at the airport and made a brief stop at the florists for the corsages of golden hybrid tea roses. The table with the guestbook looked festive, the basket of scrolls surrounded by yellow rose petals. Classic!

Linda and I giggled together girlishly as we dressed in the back bedroom, admiring one another in our gowns. “It’s just perfect, Terri,” she said. “A lovely summer afternoon home wedding.”

“I know,” I agreed. “I am so happy that everything fell into place.”

Just then Darren tapped at the door. He would escort Linda to her position in the alcove. He shot me an inscrutable glance, shook his head, and whispered, “Don’t be surprised at the minister.” Then they were off.

A minute later I heard the rousing opening bars of the Processional, and Steve was at the door, offering me his arm. We ambled out into the living room where we were greeted by applause. Ken’s friends indeed had turned out for the party. I could hear a few guffaws though in the background, and then I spied Ken, with his designated Best Man, son Rick, standing side by side next to a grim-faced blue-suited man who swayed slightly from side to side.

As we neared I could smell the overwhelming odor of Kentucky bourbon, and it emanated from Ken’s Yellow Pages pick. Ken blinked at me and lifted an eyebrow as I slid into place beside him.

The dour rent-a-clergy started out steadily enough, but as he progressed, the words spilled out more slowly and more slurred. He sighed from time to time, and then plodded on. I wanted to sneak a peek at my husband-to-be, but abstained.

Ken’s friends cleared their throats and coughed at the line about showing just cause why we may not be joined together, but Ken silenced them with a sardonic glance over his shoulder.

Then the officiant pronounced us hubbin ‘n’ wipe.

We signed the documents, had them witnessed, slipped our solemn friend an envelope for his services, and whisked him to the door.

“Looks like he partied before he got here,” said Ken’s best friend from fifth grade.

“Just perfect!” I exclaimed.

“Let’s party, Wipe,” Ken responded, handing me a flute of champagne.

We did. Sublime!

6/23/1935: Ken's 75th Birthday

2010-06-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

My late husband, Ken Wilson, would have celebrated his 75th birthday today, had he stuck around another year and a bit. In his honor, I checked out what happened on the very date he was born. Ken was a Sunday child, full of grace.

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1935.html

Ken shared his birthday with pharaohs, warlords and kings.

47 BC - Pharaoh Ptolemy XV of Egypt
1534 - Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (d. 1582)
1763 - Josephine de Beauharnais, Empress of France (d. 1814)
1894 - King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (d. 1972)
1941 - Robert Hunter, American lyricist and poet (The Grateful Dead)
1965 - Paul Arthurs, British guitarist (Oasis)
1972 - Zinedine Zidane, French footballer

Bing Crosby's Red Sails in the Sunset was a hit in '35.

Happy birthday, baby. xox

Life Review - June 18

2010-06-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

Today I celebrate three important June 18 dates.

Fifty five years ago today I married Bob Elders, in Lynwood, California, ten days before my 18th birthday. A story I wrote about going to his memorial service in Long Beach five years ago, "When He Looked Like James Dean," was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul's Divorce and Recovery volume in 2008, and also won a prize in the Past Loves contest, and is published online here:
http://www.ourpastloves.com/winners2008.html

My stepgranddaughter, Kendra Wilson, celebrates her first birthday today. I last visited with her in Casa Grande, AZ, at her christening in February, and look forward to her arrival here in Colville with mom and dad, Angela and Rick, to housesit in August while I'm studying Victorian life and literature at the University of Cambridge. I'm working on a story about Kendra for a Chicken Soup for the Soul submission for a collection on grandmothers. I may get it finished this weekend.

Sir Paul McCartney was born on this date in 1942. My tale about my son, Steve, and the Beatles and how Steve memorializes our joint affection for the Liverpudlians and rock 'n roll in general, will appear soon in Patchwork Path's Treasure Box, under the title "All Those Years Ago."

Terri's Travels

2010-06-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

There's still so much world to see...and to write about. I've been to fifty countries (more, but I never count them if I don't get beyond the airport) and most of the states, save a few New England, midwest and deep south. But I've not seen nearly enough yet of Asia and South America to feel truly "well travelled."

The Unforgotten

2010-06-05T11:43:00.001-07:00

I've never been much of a believer in the supernatural...but my late husband, Ken, definitely was. In the months before he died, just a year ago today, Ken regaled me with tales of how he would come back to haunt the dogs, and me.

The afternoon of the day he passed to the other side, the dogs escaped through a gate left ajar by the young man who mows my lawns. They dragged themselves home in little more than half an hour, looking sheepish. I thought then that Ken's spirit had scolded them and sent them home.

Not long after, Gregory Kompes, who edits the wonderful Patchwork Path anthology series, launched a new career as a psychic, and offered me a telephone consultation. He told me that Ken's spirit indeed walked around the backyard with the dogs. I wonder if that's why Natty, who was so attached to Ken, lies out there for hours, looking totally zoned out and blissful.

Just a few minutes ago I heard a repetitive thud/thud in the backyard, and went out to find both dogs hurling themselves against the one gate that sometimes gives. I put another nail into the post and rehooked the chain to ensure they stay safely inside.

Ken told me of Houdini's avowal to contact people from beyond. I don't think he succeeded. But twice this year I've found books overturned from the case next to my writing desk in the family room. The first incident, about a month after Ken's death, involved Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter. Ken and I met Walter when he came to the Colville library to give a talk and dined beforehand with the Colville book group. I shivered as I set the book back in place.

Then just last week I spied a second book from the same case on the floor. It was Faye Kellerman's The Forgotten. Both of us had been fans of Jonathan and Faye Kellerman's mysteries. I reflected on its title. I'm not certain I am ready yet to declare myself a believer in psychic phenomena, but this is the kind of spooky coincidence that Ken adored.

So if you're trying to send a message to me, dear spirited Spirit...I got it. Here's one for you: you're not forgotten. Not today. Not ever. Your portrait still hangs in the bedroom, and I've added the maps of ancient Briton that you never got around to displaying. I'll weed around your Asian lilies this afternoon and sprinkle them with deer repellant. Tonight I'll haul down your special ceramic cup and pour you a brandy Manhattan. I'll think of something special to commemorate you on your June 23 birthday and on what would have been our tenth anniversary on July 1.

As a postscript, yesterday I learned that the story I wrote about Natty pining for you after you left, "From Nuisance to Blessing," will appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul's Think Positive, publication set for November 2.

xox

Spring Cleaning

2010-05-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

My friend Linda from California plans to visit me here in Northeast WA next month and writes that she looks forward to seeing "lush green foliage." This past week's rain and drizzle ensure she'll get her fill. There's more downpours and deluges predicted for this week, as well.

The gray skies merely serve as a muted backdrop for the blush of lilacs and iris everywhere, so my spirits aren't nearly as soggy as they could be during such a prolonged wet spell. I'm so relieved it's spring.

I'm not undertaking spring cleaning this year. Instead I'm brightening the house with little changes. If I organize one drawer, hang one picture, replace one fragrance candle, it doesn't add up to a total renovation, but it makes my surroundings a little more inviting. Sure, I could devote a weekend to cleaning the carpet, but wouldn't I rather spend that time:

Writing about facing my first funeral at fourteen?
Cheering on the Lakers?
Attending a performance of "Dearly Departed" by Chewelah's Park Avenue Players?
Walking Natty around the Loop?

So when Linda arrives the carpet may be dingy. But there's fresh paisley sheets on her bed, a jasmine candle in the family room, a bouquet of peonies in the kitchen, and the framed maps of ancient Briton that Ken purchased five years ago finally up on my bedroom wall.

I'll rent the carpet cleaner in July.

As for writing, here's tales that need telling:

How I helped a colleague come clean about her potluck potato salad.
Why I wept buckets at stepgrandaughter Kendra's christening.
What I learned from Blanche DuBois about relying on the kindness of a stranger.

Wistful Vista

2010-05-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

Four events of the past couple of days have mired me in the mellow 1950s.

First, I reconnected with a high school friend who had been my bridesmaid in 1955. I'm planning to see her at a high school reunion later this year. I've been remembering how the two of us used to slather baby oil on ourselves and spend hours lounging on towels in my parents' backyard, pretending we were at the beach. It's a wonder we aren't both dead of skin cancer by now. As it is, we're the only two still around from those long ago wedding photos.

Second, Chicken Soup for the Soul has some new books geared for preteens and teens on its upcoming list, and a writer friend and I have been reminiscing about proms, dates and all the anguish about being asked to dance to the slow, dreamy numbers.

Third, I received a note through Classmates from a boy I'd known at my original high school...and waves of memories came back involving social events from those days. Sadie Hawkins dances. Senior Days. Family interactions. After decades of teaching drama, he became a motivational speaker and writes for Chicken Soup for the Soul. What a coincidence.

Last, I received a packet of photos in the mail from my late husband's lifelong friend. There's Ken in his high school days and Air Force days. All 1950s again.

Now I'm edging back a little earlier...to the beginning of the decade as I try to piece together why I never graduated to making an apron in my 7th grade sewing class, when I so wanted to succeed. I've got to get that story written tomorrow when I return to real time. As for now, I'm still locating old Joni James and Stan Kenton tunes on You Tube, and remembering how Pavlovettes danced to Blue Tango at the talent show of 1953.

Orphan Sojourns

2010-05-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

Though I finished the story, Grandma Fang and a Clowder of Kittens, I've rummaged through my files and revisited some orphans. So I dolled up these perfectly good older stories, never before published, and sent them to knock on new doors:

Vaya Con Dios
Miss Laird and Horse Sense
Upside, Downside
A Peanut Butter Kind of Day
Light of My Life
Hot Biscuits and a Zillion Zinnias
Crowning Glory
Double Sawbuck
No Rotten Tomatoes

I'd hoped to be writing a "cubicle story" today, but it might not get to tell itself. I'm about to take a nap instead. Before dawn my telephone rang. No good news ever announces itself at 4 a.m. so I started to shiver as I reached for the phone. A child's voice asked me if my refrigerator was running. I tried to imagine parents who would allow their child to phone strangers at this hour, awakening worrywart old ladies like me, heightening the risk of heart attacks. Then I remembered cell phones. That child might have been huddled under her covers, just as I used to be with my flashlight. Only I was reading "Black Beauty," not dialing at random to strike fear in the hearts of all of us who know in our bones that no good news arrives at 4 a.m.

Patchwork Path's Wedding Bouquet arrived yesterday, carrying two of my stories about weddings, including mine to Ken in Reno nearly ten years ago. That's the 21st anthology between the wooden A and Z bookends atop the entertainment center.

Grandma Wasn't the Only One....

2010-05-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

This has been a day crammed with distractions. Since taking Susan Woolridge's poetry workshop yesterday afternoon and being awarded my "poetic license," I've wanted to attempt a new piece of creative non-fiction, using some of her techniques.

Instead I had to scamper to town to fax new forms to the University of Cambridge, since I heard that the National Trust never received my tuition voucher, which Cambridge mailed to Washington DC on February 24.

I returned to town a second time to attend a meeting, a ribbon-cutting for a wonderful new website put together by Eastern Washington University, with data on this tri-county area. This will be useful for area grant writers immediately.

Now I'm readying to attend a book group discussion on assorted tomes about Benjamin Franklin.

Tomorrow I hope to write the story about forgiveness in absentia or about the grumpy grandma cat. In the meantime I polished "All of His Heroes," and sent it off to an anthology.

With little block time for any serious composing, I determined to clear out accumulated e-mail and found this priceless quotation, that I wish I could share with Grandma Gertie, whose quote heads my blog:

"I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around."--James Beard

So there you have it...two great cooks in agreement, for a change.

AAUW Awardees, Me, and A Gift from the Sea

2010-05-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

Rabbit Habit

2010-05-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

When I awoke this morning I remembered that it was on this date last year that my late husband and I said our last "rabbit" together when I refreshed his bedside ice water. By the first of June he was too weak and too disoriented to say "rabbit" for luck. And, of course, Ken's long run of luck had nearly run out.

As a young girl I'd read an English storybook where the heroine upon awakening said "rabbit" for good luck on the first day of each month. I later learned that this tradition was widespread throughout the British empire. I found women in both Belize and Seychelles who practiced it. I passed the habit along to both of my husbands and my son.

In 1967 I wrote a couple of paragraphs about my "Rabbit Habit" and the brief piece was published in Woman's Day in the old Neighbors column. It was my first sale to a national publication, one carried in thousands of supermarkets. My first husband secretly photocopied and framed my $25 acceptance check and wrapped it as a Christmas gift. That memento is in a file cabinet in my son's garage in Orange, CA, and the next time I visit I plan to dig it out.

After my anecdote was published, the Neighbors editor sent me a sheath of letters she had received in response. In those pre-email days, several folks invested stamps to recount the English origins of the story, or to share their delight in reading my contribution in the pages of their favorite publication. Others sent in bombasts seething with the style and substance of Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:

"Don't believe in luck...everything is predestined by your Maker!"
"Knocking on wood and saying "rabbit" are invoking Satan!"
"Read the Bible, not English storybooks!"

Oh, well. The Lord indeed is my shepherd, but I do believe in luck, in English traditions, and on good days, in fairy tales. I always clap for Tinker Bell. Don't you?

I concur with Thomas Jefferson, my favorite founding father:

“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

So today, the first of May, I said "rabbit" and asked for luck and opportunity to write about :

1. Ken's love of secret codes and cowboys.
2. A grandmotherly cat.
3. Forgiveness in absentia.

Then I opened my e-mail and found that three more of my stories either have been accepted or are being considered for inclusion in the new Dream of Things anthologies, and...a fan letter from a lady in South Africa who loved "Withstanding Winter's Woes," in Chicken Soup for the Soul's What I Learned from the Cat.

Now that's gotta be a lucky start to the merry month of May!

Two Gifts: Airborne and Edible

2010-04-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

1. For the community: I wrote my presentation for the AAUW event this coming Tuesday:

When I got married in 1955, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s eloquent and elegant book, Gift From the Sea, had been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 19 weeks. It went on to remain there for 80 weeks all together.

I read it not long after coming home from my honeymoon on Catalina Island, off the California coast. I had grown up loving the ocean, so I was entranced by the idea of a few weeks in a beach cottage.

In those days, Charles Lindbergh, the first man to cross the Atlantic nonstop from New York to Paris in The Spirit of St. Louis, was still famous, but Anne, a pioneering aviator herself, nearly equaled his fame with this book. In it she addresses issues that are timeless: essentially how does a woman fulfill the roles of citizen, artist, wife, partner, mother, career person, friend, family member, and balance all of that with the time and self-commitment for spiritual and emotional nurturing.

I’ve returned to this book half a dozen times over the decades, and its words always speak to me in a new way and shed light on how I structure my time. To pay homage to Mrs. Lindbergh, five years ago I volunteered to be a grant reviewer for the Lindbergh Foundation. As a reviewer I was able to ask Mrs. Lindbergh’s youngest child, her daughter Reeve, a writer herself, if she’d be interested in signing bookplates for the AAUW award recipients. She agreed to do so.

She wrote: “It is good to know that my mother’s writing has meant so much to you over the years. I feel very much the same way about it and return, as you do, to this little volume for comfort and for inspiration. All my best to the scholars. Warmly, Reeve Lindbergh”

I hope you’ll treasure this little book as much as I have.

2. For my freelance anthology work:
I wrote a last minute story to contribute to the Redbook competition on couples, about how much I miss Ken's delectable, delicious cooking for me. Ken was a first class chef.

It's been a good writing day.

High Hopes

2010-04-23T14:34:00.001-07:00

There's a few stories simmering, but just not ready to cook yet. I've got tomorrow to get at least one actually on paper, and it's gotta be Winging It.

1. Ken and chicken wings.
2. Kendra's christening and grandmahood.
3. A tale of forgiveness...I know this one will reveal itself soon.

Meanwhile, this week I revised some orphans and sent them out to charm a publisher into adoption. I've renewed hopes for The Crave Slave, Ugali by Golly, An Astonishment of Unicorns, Suds 'n Solace, Right on Time, Choosing Shoes Blues, The Double Sawbuck and At Home in My Heart.

And High Apple Pie in the Sky Hopes...

Yesterday I chatted with an entrepreneur who is a sponsor of an organization that encourages youth to realize their potential. He's looking for a writer/editor to help with a proposed book. I think we have similar views on youth development, and am hoping for a second chat next week with him or one of his partners. It's about mindsets...and I bet I could write that book, if I set my mind to it!

I'm also looking forward to writing poetry again, and have signed up for a workshop in Colville with Susan Woolridge, author of Foolsgold and Bathing with Ants. Hey...ants! They can move a rubber tree plant!

Oops, there goes another problem, kerplop.

Give and Take

2010-04-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

You've got to give a little, even if you are a freelance writer. So just about two years ago I contributed stories to three anthologies intended to be fundraisers for causes I care about.

The first book, to be published in Ireland, solicited stories on care giving. Since my late husband had been ill for some time, I contributed a story in 2008 about how he surprised me by having his portrait painted so I'd have something special to remember him by. The caregiver group accepted my story and indicated they anticipated immediate publication.

Months passed, and I never heard any updates. My e-mails bounced back and their website had disappeared. I worried that I had been scammed, and subsequently submitted my story to two anthologies in the States. They both offered to buy it, and I went with the one that would be published soonest, hoping my husband would live long enough to see the tale in print. Ironically, he died the day my contributors' copies arrived, but he'd made a list of friends he wanted me to send the books to. Of course I did.

This morning, over a year and a half later, I got notification that the book, 24/7:How Much We Care, will be published within the next two months, and will include my story, The Legacy. It's heartening to think that Irish eyes will be smiling at my husband's sweet gesture. The group will provide a contributor's copy in thanks. But I'd already been paid $200 and given ten copies of the book containing the work by the other publisher.

A pastor in Canada developed her anthology as a fundraiser for grandmothers who are raising HIV/AIDS orphans in Africa. The book, Grandmothers' Necklace, sought "jewels," poems and stories on the grandmother theme. I sent Grandma Gertie's Pickled Peaches, complete with recipe, and soon received notice it was accepted. The editor asked contributors to purchase copies, since all proceeds were earmarked for the charity... so I bought three. One is ensconced with the several other anthologies including my stories, between the black A and Z bookends atop the entertainment center. The others dwell temporarily in the box where I store gifts for yet undesignated giftees. My charitable contribution amounted to $60, plus my time to write the story. Yet I'm pleased because I'm not certain I could have found another publisher for this particular tale. As a bonus my picture is on the cover, as one of the "jewels" in the necklace.

The third editor sought stories about what we have learned from our mothers. My mom was a walking encyclopedia of lessons to be learned, so I sent a tale, It's About Time. The editor, who also billed himself as a publisher, indicated he would give the proceeds to combat domestic violence, though he was vague indeed about exactly how that would work. He sent an acceptance letter, but said he needed to edit my contribution, since he wanted to include as many stories as he could crowd in. I offered to edit myself, but he declined. Instead he removed whole paragraphs, which interfered with the continuity of the story, eliminated any backstory, and left one line in the conclusion nearly incomprehensible. I'd discovered the latter only after signing the permission release.

After a series of e-mails asking his contributors to suggest publishing houses that might be interested in such a collection, he finally notified everybody that he would be posting updates on Twitter only. Though I doubted he'd ever find a publisher, just this week I learned that a friend who also contributed received the $100 stipend he'd offered. Since I hadn't, I looked up the Twitter account and learned that in January he had discarded a third of the stories originally selected. I inquired about my tale, and yes, it had been cut, and I'd not been told. Moreover, my friend inquired about a contributor's copy, and was told he planned to send them only to people who asked for them. It also sounds as if the contributors would be given a free copy only if they ordered more. The charity is still unnamed.

It's rare when I think that a rejection is a blessing is disguise. This time it is. I now can market my story in its original and comprehensible form.

Lesson learned: sometimes its better to give than to take...but sometimes it's not! Apparently I'm still gaining the wisdom to know the difference.

No Two Alike: Fingerprints, Snowflakes and Grief

2010-04-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

A Cup of Comfort for Fathers was released April 1. It contains my story, "Montana Bananas and Sure Shots," about how my late husband, Ken, raised his three sons to be non-gamblers in Reno, Nevada, while he and their mother both worked for decades in the gaming industry.

It's available at http://www.amazon.com/Cup-Comfort-Fathers-celebrate-everything/dp/1605500909/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270316936&sr=1-1

I received contributor's copies weeks ago, and mailed them to Ken's three sons. I signed them "in memory of your dad."

Every day I remember their dad. A friend e-mailed yesterday that she now was a part time bachelorette, since her husband has taken a job in Spokane, and stays at an apartment there during the week. She said it's quite an adjustment. I responded that as a widow of less than a year I don't have trouble getting through the days. It's in the evenings when I miss sharing the day's events, watching the news together, taking turns cooking supper. Most of all, holidays don't seem like holidays at all when you're just home alone.

Tomorrow morning I won't be searching around the house to see where Ken has hidden my Easter bunny. I won't expect a chocolate egg. Most painful, I won't see his signature lopsided smile when he opens the funny Easter card I always had so much fun picking out.

Yesterday I received a packet from the Neptune Society. Since Ken's cremation last June, they've sent surprises to help assuage my loss...wildflower seeds to plant in his memory, a certificate indicating a teddy bear had been donated in his name to a child who was alone, scared or hurt. The packet contained a brochure with an article about how we use words to soothe those who are grieving. The article indicated that the words "recovery" or "resolution" may not be the most appropriate, because they suggest a return to normalcy.

Recently I wrote a submission for an upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul book tentatively titled "Grief and Recovery." My story is called "Not Quite Unbearable," and I won't know for months whether it will be accepted. But I recall thinking that there was something not quite right about that book's proposed title. When I did grief training for Arkansas Department of Health nurses who would be interviewing bereaved moms statewide when our Maternal and Child Health Division had a Fetal Infant Mortality Review grant, I stressed that we don't really recover from loss. We incorporate the loss and eventually move on...but the loss remains with us.

The Neptune Society brochure cites Dr. Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D., from the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Ft. Collins, CO. He suggests that the term "reconciliation" might be a better one to describe the process of moving from looking back to looking towards the future.

I especially appreciated this: "Remember, grief is like a fingerprint...It is unique. No two people will experience it in the same way. Be patient and give yourself time."

Tomorrow morning, rather than mourning the loss of Easter bunnies, and depending on whether those predicted flakes of snow actually descend, I might take Natty for a long walk around the Loop...or maybe even drive to town. A young pastor I've worked with in our anti-poverty Horizons group, will be preaching.

Easter blessings, bunnies or no.

Grandma Gertie Knew Her Stuff

2010-04-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday I attended a group session at the local community college, conducted by New Life Hypnosis. I'd decided it's time to shed the weight I've piled on over the past few years through Ken's illness and after his death last June. I should have been comforting myself with apples. Instead I'd favored toasted cheese sandwiches and late night chocolate truffles.

But now it's spring and Easter week, time for rebirth, resurrection, reconciliation. Rather than missing Ken's Parmesan garlic bread and barbecued rib eyes, I want to concentrate more on healthy rather than yummy. I intend to shed enough flab that I'll fit again into those cute outfits I bought back in 2006 when I was to be honored at UCLA.

Though it's far too soon to tell, I do feel more relaxed after the two brief hypnosis sessions our therapist conducted. And I'm devoting twenty minutes twice daily to the tapes I bought for reinforcement.

Here's the bright side of this gloomy weekend that even has snow predicted for Easter Sunday. Since I'm home alone I'm not faced with having to refuse second helpings of glazed ham and candied sweet potoates. Instead I'm going to bake some tarragon chicken and steam some cruciferous vegetables.

Grandma Gertie always claimed tarragon made things better. And she always urged me to eat my veggies. So I was delighted today to find this on the web:

If your grandmother ever nudged you to eat all your veggies, she was giving you better advice than even she was aware of. A new study published in the journal "Gynecologic Oncology" has found that a substance found only in cabbage-family veggies -- cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and bok choy -- represses cancer cells in the pre-invasive phase of sex-hormone related cancers of both men and women. The substance, nicknamed 13C, seems to work on the metabolism of estrogen sex hormones. More expansive studies are in the works, but in the meantime, follow granny's advice!

Happy Easter and happy New Life!

I Read a Book This Week, Oh, Boy....

2010-03-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

It's "Olive Kitteridge," the Pulitzer Prize winning "novel," by Elizabeth Strout, a collection of thirteen haunting short stories centering on the eponymous heroine. I'm not the first to be reminded of Sherwood Anderson's hypnotic "Winesburg, Ohio." So now I'm thinking about fiction, and if it's not impossible for me to tackle, after all.

Through a lifetime of writing features and anthology slices-of-life, I've grown accustomed to telling a story in a thousand to two thousand words. Until I read "Olive Kitteridge", writing a novel seemed an impossible task. It would require me to learn a whole new literary form, and I'm not certain that's where I want to invest my remaining days and weeks.

In the past three years I've written around fifty inspirational non-fiction stories. About half have been published in anthologies. Now I'm consumed with a major WHAT IF.

What if I devoted an equal amount of energy in telling not-so-true stories that involved a place, a person, an idea or philosophy? Wouldn't this be fiction? Couldn't I do it?

What if tonight, after I finish another chapter of Jerome Charyn's "The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson," I drowse off to dream about a theme for this possible work? What if one appears? What if tomorrow I begin my Once Upon a Time, at long last?

Today I wrote a review of an historical novel written by an acquaintance in my community. How I envied her perseverance in researching, plotting and actually writing this book. I know I wouldn't have the patience. But, still....what if??

This afternoon I washed the mud off the floors in the hallway and in the process I may also have cleaned up my muddled mind. Hmmmmm.

Days of Muddy Paw Prints and Muddled Thoughts

2010-03-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

I'm going to carve out time to write this week, even if it means letting the housework go until the day before Easter. With nearly daily rain, the critters carry so much mud into the entry with their twenty paws that I have to fling down my mop and give up until we hit a dry spell.

This weekend I resubmitted several stories that didn't get picked up by anthologies that I thought were possibilities. Sometimes my orphans end up in better homes than I'd originally anticipated. Yesterday I polished them up in their Sunday best and shoved them out into cyberspace once more.

Today I read a historical novel that I promised an acquaintance I'd review. I'm going to devote tomorrow morning to getting that review written, and then craft a submission for an online literary magazine for women over 60. It seeks abbreviated anecdotal tales with humor and irony. By tomorrow afternoon I'll muster some ironic humor and write. I know the topic, but today my ideas aren't as clear as mud. But they will be tomorrow.

Keeping My Drumsticks Crossed

2010-03-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I despair of ever getting another story published. It's so cyclical. Last year I hit two periods where I seemed to get acceptances nearly weekly. Now the stretches between seem longer. Nonetheless, it's the composing of a piece that I really enjoy most. The anticipation of seeing my byline in print is secondary.

Today I wrote about why, unlike my father and my first husband, I don't hate preparing my tax returns. It's a yearly ritual that I embrace, as bizarre as that might seem.

Getting My Irish Up

2010-03-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

I wish I were in Seal Beach, CA, today. It's not that I don't love seeing the crocus emerge this sumptious early country spring. But today's St. Paddy's Day, and I'm far from a Celtic bar where I could hear Chieftains wannabes and hoist a mug of green beer. It's been a long time since I visited The Irisher on March 17, then strolled out on the Seal Beach pier. But that's where I'd be today if I could just teleport myself somehow.

Since I lack that magical power, I'm making do with a corned beef in the crockpot and a new recipe for fried cabbage.

I'm finished with a grant review that's taken up much of the past week, and will drive to town to Fed Ex the forms back to D.C. Then for the next couple of days I'll get some personal writing done, with Chicken Soup for the Soul in Mind.

Grandmothers (Kendra's Christening)
Young at Heart (preparing for Cambridge summer school)
Positive Thinking (believe it or not...a tale about income tax preparation)

Multifarious

2010-03-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

Though I've not yet seen the new Burton take on Alice in Wonderland, I've been changing hats more frequently than any Mad Hatter, Johnny Depp or otherwise. In the past two weeks I've:

edited a book, The Recipe, on a team approach to running a business.
participated in a Washington Medical Quality Assurance Commission meeting.
critiqued an upcoming Search Institute book by Peter Benson, emphasizing mentoring.
written part of a story on my stepgranddaughter's christening, with deadline looming.
reread sections of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, for a book group discussion.
began a federal grant review for SAMHSA.

What I really want to do is finish the christening story and write some queries for a a story on a locally famous artist, and for a book on my upcoming adventure in Victoriana at the University of Cambridge.

The Print Press

2010-03-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

The topic for discussion today on one of my listservs for writers and editors involved the New York Times decision to begin charging for online subscriptions and whether any of us would pony up to have it delivered to our inbox. Here's my response:

Today's topic is one that I'm impassioned about, so please forgive my soapbox speech here.

As a high school journalism teacher back in the early '60s in Long Beach, CA, I subscribed to two dailies, the Los Angeles Times in the a.m. and the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram in the evening. I toted the Times to school each day to use with my beginning journalism classes. In the evening I would come home from work, curl up with a glass of wine and read the local news.

Now I live in NE Washington, about 70 miles north of Spokane. Our Spokane daily has shrunk, but I still support it. And I subscribe to both the Chewelah and Colville weeklies to keep up with local news, since I live between the two communities. I also get the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Newsline on line, and have the New York Times and Reuters news on My Yahoo page.

Having lived and worked all over the world with Peace Corps, international news is very important to me. It informs my voting decisions, and the causes and charities I want to support. I also alternate between subscriptions to Time and Newsweek magazines.

During the decade that I lived overseas in four developing countries, when folks asked about what I missed, I'd list big city Sunday papers, the Lakers on television, frozen yogurt and bubble baths. When I worked at Peace Corps HQ in Washington DC, I could hardly wait to open my three-pound Washington Post each Sunday.

But I know that younger people do not access much objective journalism or favor print. They tend to get their news and commentary from websites such as The Huffington Post, Salon, and hardly impartial television stations such as Fox News and MSNBC. I'm wondering if they are able anymore to distinguish between objective reporting and opinion.

Dinosaur that I may be, at least I am semi-retired. My son, who followed in my journalistic footsteps, has spent over thirty years with four Los Angeles area papers. He was with the Press Telegram, the Valley Daily News, the Orange County Register, and for the past six years has been chief copy editor for the Times Sunday Calendar entertainment section.

During the past year and a half he has survived four rounds of layoffs there, but is grateful that the Times has not yet reduced anybody's salary or forced them to take unpaid furloughs. His former college colleagues with papers in Detroit, western Washington and smaller California cities, have lost jobs or have had their working hours and compensation drastically reduced. He is about thirteen years shy of retirement age, and really has no other kind of work experience.

I still treasure my moments with the daily paper. I like the rattle of the pages, perusing the sports statistics, pouring over the letters to the editors, and when I have a moment, especially during television commercial breaks, working the crossword puzzles.

I'm hoping that the fourth estate outlives me, but sometimes I'm afraid it won't.

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

I'd only add, and every woman, too.

On a lighter note, today was a glorious start of March in these parts...56 degrees, more like late April!

Warm regards, Terri Elders

Odds and Ends

2010-02-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

What are the odds:
I'm looking at the list of income-earning activities I've said I'd be available for in the next several weeks, and wondering how many will actually materialize.
1. A brief editing job for this weekend.
2. A hearing for the Medical Commission in mid-March.
3. Three federal grant reviews (HHS/HIV, SAMHSA, and Department of Education Safe and Drug Free Schools).
Last year about 95% of the MQAC cases set for hearings were settled. During a similar grant review period last summer, I reserved time to review for four grants...and was selected for just one.
As my late husband always said about odds...the chances are at least three in one!
In the meantime, I can always use the time to write anthology submissions and to study the Victorian underworld, because I've had... (see below)

A happy ending:
You've heard of the irresistible force and the immovable object? Well, I've been hassling for the last month with the University of Cambridge and the U.S. National Trust. The first said I had to pay my tuition costs for Cambridge International Summer School in pounds sterling, and the second said it could only pay my education award for my VISTA service in US dollars, since the money comes directly from the U.S. Treasury. Since I already bought my roundtrip airfare to England, this has been causing me to lose sleep at nights. I even offered to pay the fee in pounds sterling directly through my bank, suggesting that the University send the papers to the Trust, get the dollars, and then give them to me.

Now Cambridge has relented, and said they would accept the money from the National Trust in US dollars, then send me an invoice or a refund for the difference, if any, after the dollars are converted to pounds sterling.

So I can sleep again, and start to read Oliver Twist.

Sundae, Monday and Always

2010-02-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finished my story, Sundae, Monday and Always. Set in 1951, it details how my cigar-smoking customer that I privately termed The Riddler, helped solve a Christmas dilemma. The subplot revolves around a boyfriend who may or may not surprise me with a holiday treat.

If the dogs leave me alone long enough, today I'll write about my cousin Neicie, the quirkiest character in my entire family of misfits.

Birthday Bonanza

2010-02-20T12:04:00.000-08:00

My son celebrates his birthday Monday, February 22. In his honor, and for an upcoming Chicken Soup book for new moms, this morning I wrote about the days leading up to his birth, and the aftermath, and sent it off this morning both to the anthology and to Steve. I called it Birthday Bonanza, since it's about the unanticipated benefit of being born on what was then a school holiday, George Washington's birthday.

This next week I plan to complete the story about Cousin Neicie, and two Christmas tales, one about Christmas Eve at Owl Drug Store when I was fourteen, and the other, an "as told to" about a friend's recent experience during the holiday blizzard in NYC.

Dream of Things

2010-02-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

My story about my fourth grade teacher in Scotts Mills, OR, Forever Sharp, has been selected as Story of the Week by Dream of Things. It will be published in an anthology later this year. Here it is:

http://dreamofthings.com/dream-catchers

The Great Who-Nami

2010-02-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

I finished the story about Tsunami, my Akita, yesterday, and sent it off to Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Dog's Life. It's about her puppyhood, when she rivaled Houdini as an escapologist.

Now I'm off to Arizona where I'll be going to granddaughter Kendra's christening on Saturday...and hope to finish the story about Cousin Neicie and her seafaring Yugo.

Memories

2010-02-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

One of these three stories will tell itself today, given a chance:

My cousin Neicie's Yugo that crossed the Pacific more times than Kon-tiki
The cigar smoker at the drugstore counter on Christmas Eve
My Akita, Tsunami, who rivaled Houdini as an escapologist

So after I mop, dust and vacuum, I'll sit down to the laptop in the back room and see which tale turns up!