For some reason, some people (you know who you are) have the perception that I’m clumsy. Yeah, okay, I drop things, which always seem to roll under whatever nearby piece of furniture will render them most unreachable. And sometimes I spill things, but in my defense, I believe the travel mug,… Read full post »

It's November. For some people, that means we're heading full tilt into the holidays, but for others, November means one thing: It's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.

Ever since I first heard of NaNoWriMo, I've debated participating, but I have yet to take the plunge, and this year is… Read full post »

Years ago, when the boyfriend and I still lived in San Diego, we decided to get away for a romantic weekend in Idyllwild, a little town in the San Jacinto Mountains a couple of hours away. It was autumn, and the leaves were turning. Well, not in San Diego—palm fronds don’t… Read full post »

An interview with my bully?

Oh, I think not.

Nearly 35 years have passed since I saw my bully in person, and if I saw her in another 35, it would be too soon.

“She’s turned nice,” someone told me about 20 years ago.

Yeah, right, I… Read full post »

Potted plants (aka "pot plants" in the South--I kid you not) at the local farmers' market. 

I always feel bad for houseplants that are given to me. I know better than to buy them myself, because I will kill them. I don't set out to kill them, but inevitably, my… Read full post »

The Tio Vivo carousel is an iconic feature of Las Fiestas de Taos.

Each July, Las Fiestas de Taos are held in honor of the town’s two patron saints, St. Anne, or Santa Ana, mother of the Virgin Mary, and St. James, or Santiago (Santo Yago) de Compostela. It… Read full post »

I’m not talking to you, I realize when we are on the phone today. I’m talking to heroin.

Since your arrest, I’ve been feeling guilty, angry, resentful, and frustrated, but today’s epiphany causes me to make a shift. Make no mistake—I’m extremely displeased with yo… Read full post »

“Shall I slip into something more comfortable?” is a line that’s been around almost as long as the talking picture—maybe longer. But I always associate it with the movies, especially films that seemed sophisticated to me when I was a kid. I wanted desperately to be a night owl… Read full post »

If there is a Rapture, I'm pretty sure I’m not invited. It’s kind of like those family reunions I didn’t know about until after they took place, only on a larger scale.

Not that I don’t know about the Rapture—this one, anyway. I didn’t know about—nor was I… Read full post »

Now and then, I need a good hard kick in the ass.

Two years ago, when I learned I wouldn't need chemotherapy, I swore I'd never again complain about a bad hair day, because any day with hair was a good hair day.

Last week, when I looked at my new… Read full post »

People can be shockingly gullible. Otherwise, why would anyone bother to assume the identity of a Nigerian cabinet minister’s widow who begs you to allow her to transfer several million dollars into your bank account because you—and you alone—are a person of integrity whom she can t… Read full post »

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time." --Gandhi

Trends come and… Read full post »

Some of us call it Autumn,

And others call it God.

                        --William Herbert Carruth

The light is changing. The sun is at a different angle, and t… Read full post »

A is for agents. Acceptance. Advance. Accolades.

B is for book. Book buyers. Bestseller. Bookstore. Book trailer. All kinds of good things start with B.

C is for critics, who love my work, and also for commitment, because it takes a lot of that to write a book.… Read full post »

As a rule, Southern women are crafty. I don’t mean in a Scarlett O’Hara way, although yeah, there is that. But what I’m talking about here is glue-gun craftiness. The kind of craftiness that involves making things, and being good at it. 

When I saw the open… Read full post »

This week, I will be the new 29. I’m perfectly willing to believe that 50 is the new 30, and if that’s true (and I don’t want to know if it’s not), 49 must be the new 29. 

I believe aging is preferable to the alternative. Forty-nine doesn’t really stick… Read full post »

I don’t make any secret of the fact that I had breast cancer last year. Ask me anything about it. No question is off limits, although I may not answer it, which is my prerogative. I write about the experience occasionally, and every time I do, I think… Read full post »

The question came up in my writers’ group today: “Why do you write?” 

I’ve never given much thought to the why of it. Writing comes as naturally to me as breathing or blinking.

When I was five, I wrote my first story in pencil on loose-leaf notebook paper that… Read full post »

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” —Virginia Woolf

There is sense to these words, although undoubtedly Virginia Woolf would look at my finances and doubt my ability to write. I won’t argue that money wouldn’t be… Read full post »

A purely subjective list, mostly in no particular order, although the word I listed at #1 has a piquant vibrancy I especially like. Obvious choices such as "Aer Lingus" and "bushwhack," as well as the phrase "cunning linguist," were omitted, but thanks to Andee and Martha for the suggestions.

 &… Read full post »

Throughout my academic experience, my favorite part of going back to school was shopping for school supplies—crisp new notebooks, pencils that smelled pungently of wood, folders in which to keep class handouts, even protractors and compasses, although I detested math.

Shopping for school suppl… Read full post »

I love my writers’ group.

Ten years ago, or thereabouts, I got together with a few friends to form a read-and-critique group. At that first meeting, around a kitchen table, we were a poet, a children’s book writer, a memoirist, and a novelist. The concept: Write on your own, bring… Read full post »

Let me tell you a thing or two about these breasts.

In January 2009, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. In February, I had a bilateral mastectomy. Five months later, I had reconstructive surgery. What you see here is pure unadulterated silicone.

I wasn’t one of those… Read full post »

She prided herself on never missing a deadline, yet was late to the obituary party and will not attend her own funeral, preferring to be set adrift and aflame like a Viking.

She couldn’t wait to leave the place where she grew up, partly because the land was too flat, but… Read full post »

We have aged. Twenty years since I’ve seen her, thirty since we married, and neither of us is fifty yet. We’d been too young, but sure of ourselves and one another. Although we’d split up, we hadn’t been wrong about that. We hadn’t been wrong about one another. … Read full post »