Novelist, Playwright, Doodle-ist
Like many of us, I was a shy kid. It was hard for me to make friends. I know now—I was just an introvert trying to build one-to-one relationships in a world of group settings. We didn’t talk about “feelings” in my family, so I had to figure my own way around it. One day…
2020 was tough. It has justifiably become our first numeric cuss word. For my family 2020 began a few weeks early when we lost my grandson just before Christmas. He was a beautiful young man who made everybody smile, but he was experimenting. A huge risk took him away from his life and from us. …
Two really good things happened in 2020—and that’s saying a lot. I’m so excited. My website has gone through a complete overhaul. It’s new and updated and beautiful. (Thank you, Erica.) If you haven’t seen it, please take a few minutes to look it over. Or, get a cup of coffee or tea, maybe a…
I learned to swim when I was still in single digits. My family lived in Florida. There was a lot of water around us. It was a safety issue. Mama never learned how to swim, so I took lessons. When the swimming instructor told me to hang on to the side of the pool and…
Robert Dugoni opened the Surrey conference I just attended. “On this day, I write,” was the ending phrase of his speech. If you’d like to hear it, please click here. It is inspirational. Thanks to Robert Dugoni, I began the conference reminded of why I write. Thanks to Robert McCammon, and Robynn Sheahan, and Russell…
I awoke this morning in the middle of a dream. I had been re-hired by a firm I worked for fifteen years ago. It was my first day back. Scrambled eggs, sausage links, and hash browns were being served on the over-polished, walnut conference table. Hmmm. Family breakfasts weren’t company policy when I worked there…
When I sat down to write The Courier, I knew who I wanted Cyrus Driskoll to be at the beginning of the the book. I knew who I wanted him to be at the end. I had a rough idea of how I might get him from A to Z. To me, the most important…
My cousin, Ken, has a favorite story about our Granny. He says when he was little, he used to sneak up on her to scare her. One day, my aunt caught him. “Don’t scare your Granny like that!” she scolded. Now, you and I both know that my aunt was afraid Granny’s old heart couldn’t…
I awoke from a dream before 5 am, heart pounding. There were no zombies, no shadows chasing me across dark parking lots, no threat of my untimely demise–just a room full of strangers. I was supposed to be speaking at some sort of conference, but no one would acknowledge my presence. They just kept talking…