Hi! Welcome to my web site, the place where I share ideas, comment on writing and life and review books as I read them.

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Amazing how quickly the cold winter days segued into a most beautiful spring.

My garden is ablush with peas and carrots and lettuce sprouts...no beans yet, but soon those tiny tendrils should be popping their heads out of the dirt. This season always puts me in mind of those other seeds that are always pushing their way to the surface...stories.

Not all the seeds I plant will grow. Some of my ideas, too, will fail to thrive. Some will get crowded out by stronger, pushier ideas: characters who simply won't be ignored, a plot that keeps nattering. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Here's hoping your spring planting produces a bumper crop by fall!

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Inside this month's edition:

*From the Write Side

        The Hard Way

 *The Writing Prompt

        Maybe I will...

 *BookEnds

Hank Phillippi Ryan      The Other Woman

 *Irvignettes

         Carolina Calling

 

 *Writing Services: Need a personal touch for your writing endeavors? Looking for just the right note for those celebratory speeches or a poem to mark a special occasion? Check out my Writing Services page and let me help you put your thoughts into words to remember.

I'm available for the following presentations:

1. Not in Kansas Anymore:

          trends in genre writing

2. Writing workshops: 6-12 gr.

3. Taking the First Step:

             A Primer for Beginning Writers

4. The Writer's Tool Box: Perseverance and Rejection







Read this morning of a five-year old boy who received a child-size shotgun as a gift and used it to shoot his two-year old sister. She died. He was playing.

It occurs to me that the root cause of all gun violence is the very fundamental belief of many adults in our society, passed on to children, that weapons of violence are the answer to every fear, threat or outrage. Until we change that basic belief, death by gun will continue in our country. I'm so sad for that family and for all of us.

The 'IRVIN' Legend