You ever have one of those days when you swear the universe is sending smoke signals but you just can't read them? Yeah. I had one yesterday, its residue strong enough to push me to write about it today. I was preparing to leave for an evening of non-fiction readings by two local authors at the newest event sponsored by the Springboro Historical Society -- Reading Between the Wines -- where I serve as facilitator. I have the honor of introducing the readers for the [...]
Fab February is here, the shortest and, perhaps the dullest, of the calendar months. Except for the cultural touchstones that keep it interesting -- Valentine's Day, President's Day, National Heart Month, and the birthdays of those we hold dear. For writers like me, the month is an uninterrupted span of days to draft, revise, revisit, and polish existing work and to read and research for future endeavors. There is also, for football fans, the Super Bowl. Now, if my team isn't in it, I have [...]
Every season has a rhythm, an underlying purpose that drives the land and we who inhabit it. Take a moment to think about the rhythms you bring to each change, the cleaning and organizing, the planning and preparations. Just as the land scours itself in spring and fall, so do I. Just this week I finished the grand reorganization of my library, alphabetizing all the books shoved on top of the existing volumes and culling from the shelves those that wish to migrate to other [...]
No way to sugarcoat this truth, for me personally, it's been a shitty summer. Three rounds of antibiotics for various unusual infections followed by a Mohs procedure (www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/mohs-surgery) for skin cancer that ended up costing me most of my left nostril and resulted in complicated facial reconstruction, which is not over yet. If my last name were Scrooge, I'd scream Bah, humbug! The combination of these events entombed me in a very dark hole. I've been digging myself up ever since. For a flaming [...]
READY? What's that old line about "the world being too much with us"? Sometimes the obstacles laid along the road create a wall too high to scale. Sometimes they force us to confront truths we would rather avoid. If you're a little like me, maybe they cause you to contemplate, if only for a moment, running away, and summer provides the opportune moment to try a faux escape. After all, it's July, summer's highpoint in the northern hemisphere. In this month of heat, humidity, and [...]
Every once in a while a novel comes along that stirs your heart. Melissa Hunter's debut novel What She Lost is that kind of story. Based on the real-life story of her grandmother, the novel follows the efforts of a young woman to survive the Holocaust during WWII. Melissa is a Cincinnati, Ohio, girl who studied creative writing and journalism at UC, where she received a BA in English literature and a minor in Judaic Studies. She has been a blogger and contributed articles to [...]
When I'm immersed in a plot, one of my favorite lines to ponder is a quote from a John Irving novel The Hotel New Hampshire, I believe: "Sorrow floats." Of course, in the novel, Sorrow is a stuffed dog, but in my experience, personal now as well as professional, sorrow is that emotion that sneaks up on you when you least expect it, scares the shit out of you and then begs for attention. There isn't a doggy treat in the world that will satisfy [...]