You can see it up here on Signal Mountain: the times are changing. The leaves have turned from orange and red and gold banners into a brown carpet. We’ve already had night temps dip below freezing, so the moths no longer mob the front light. The blue-tailed skinks lurking around the door or skittering up the […]
Category Archives: The Writing Life
In Book Two of Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid takes his readers to a cave, “filthy with black gore,” where the demigod Envy lives in a sunless valley. Envy herself has teeth “foul with mould” and venom dripping from her tongue. “She gnaws and is gnawed,” Ovid says, “herself her own punishment.” Centuries later the Dutch […]
About this time, the editor (STILL on vacation in Morocco) is probably approaching the Sahara on camelback and wondering why, oh, why, did she think this trip was a good idea? After all, the temps are over 100 during the day. Perhaps a literary field trip to the frozen north of Indiana will help. And here it […]
Tables line the walls of a huge hotel meeting room. Fifty literary agents sit in alphabetical order behind the tables. Outside the door, there are two hundred of us lined up, awaiting entry into the hallowed chamber. We have paid for this opportunity. We have traveled from distant states and countries. We have written and […]
My grandchildren live with their parents in the downstairs apartment of our house, which brings me the good fortune of being able to read with them every night. I cherish everything about our evening reading routine: choosing the books, sitting side-by side on the couch with a small head leaning against my shoulder, listening to […]
Ben Franklin was born in 1705. He was America’s first millionaire. Though he never served as President to the United States, his face is forever inked into our currency on the hundred dollar bill and recognized worldwide. He did, however, serve as a delegate to the Continental Congress from Pennsylvania. He is a famous inventor […]
Let’s start this piece off with an important clarification. P-I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T is not a misspelling! Pinterest is the correct spelling of an online application for sharing pictures, links, and content. In essence, Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board. Pinterest can be an amazing tool for readers and writers. Gurus that tout the benefits of author platforms […]
Whew! The judges for the Atlanta Writers Club 2016 Writing Contest were busy this year doing the difficult job of choosing three winners out of a field of 104 entries, about double the club’s usual 60 to 62. But choose they did. Sandra Hood took the Terry Kay Prize for Fiction for her short story […]
Before the advent of greeting cards and the computer, men and women professed their passion and adoration for each other with handwritten letters. It is surmised the first love letters were written by King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn in 1527. That’s right, in his younger years Henry was a romantic softie. In his obsessive […]
When I was young, I wanted to be a nun. This was actually a compromise. I aspired to be a monk, but reality was creeping in, and when I cast my eyes into the adult future, I worried that even if I kept my short hair, my double X chromosomes would somehow be discovered. It […]
Readers Unbound 