Category life

Photo from 1986 shows a group of people with balloons and banners by Boston's Arlington Street Church at Boston's Pride Parade

Happy Pride?

It’s June. Pride month. In the tradition of what goes around comes around, the whole thing as we all know by now, started with the Stonewall riots back in 1969. Tired of the constant police raids, patrons of the Stonewall Inn fought back. I was a kid then and years away from realizing my own […]

Photo shows the rocky foreground with the summit of Mount Washington, NH, in the background and in fog

Writing Prompt: Shoes

Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you. I’ve never written to a WordPress prompt. Didn’t even know they existed, but I saw this and thought, why the heck not. So…I’m not really a shoe person. I wouldn’t say I have a favorite pair, but the notion of where I’ve […]

Photo shows a pile of brown ovoid pellets of deer poop, also called scat.

Gut Check

No one needs to read another cancer story, so I’ll give you one that’s about dodging that particular bullet. And how you can too. Absolutely no one wants to read about prepping for a colonoscopy, so I’ll save the graphic details for my notes for the next one, because there will be a next one. […]

Gray cat behind a cardboard box with a book, titled Endurance, held in the foreground

Q&A Part 3

More of my updated Q&A with the wonderful Women and Words (sadly “on hiatus”). A lot of the answers are still good, and I’ve updated others. Here’s the rest of me. Is there a book by another author that you wish you had written? I don’t know that there’s another book that I would like […]

Book cover with title Wishbone showing a wishbone lying on painted boards, byline Elaine Burnes

Q&A Part 2

Several years ago, I did a Q&A with the wonderful Women and Words (sadly “on hiatus”). A lot of the answers are still good, and I’ve updated some others. Here’s Elaine! Part 2 Tell us about your biggest guilty pleasure. For example, do you sit naked in your pantry in the middle of the night […]

Photo shows flat-stone patio and stone steps from the side with many small pieces.

Construction Day Done!

The work is finished. I can’t even begin to believe it. Seven days and they took several tons of rock and sawed and hand chipped into shape two lovely patio/walkways and stairs. I thought I’d be blogging the long process of this project because every project undertaken at this house and my last one took […]

Photo shows a large pile of flat gray stones called Goshen stone

Construction Day 1

There’s a phrase, live lightly on the land, that would be nice to adhere to, but sometimes to get there you have to make a mess first. When my wife and I moved to our little slot of paradise a few years ago, we knew we wanted a nature preserve vibe. We’ve worked to remove […]

Photos shows a wreath-like circle of twigs forming a wren nest inside the back support of a satellite dish

There’s Birding and Then There’s Birding

The house wren is back. This insouciant little guy clicks and clatters a call that sounds more like a baseball card in bike spokes than a bird. For a couple of years he tried building a nest in my satellite dish (for internet before my small town finally got wired). His girlfriends never went for […]

Phtos shows two cruise ships in a foggy bay. One very large, the other much smaller. Rows of hills inthe background

Setting: A Sense of Place

Have you ever been on a cruise? I’ve only done it once, a small-ship cruise in Alaska’s Inside Passage. The ship had about a hundred tourists and we were able to go into smaller coves and closer to the glaciers than the big Princess ship we saw a few times along the route. The contrast […]

Photograph of foggy tree-covered hills layered in front of each other with water in the foreground

So, Back to Writing

I’m reading a very cool book, In Search of the Canary Tree, by Lauren E. Oakes. It’s early yet, and in it she’s just starting her Ph.D. research project analyzing yellow-cedar forests on an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeast Alaska, near Sitka. What does this have to do with writing? I’m enthralled by […]

Story Empire

Exploring the World of Fiction

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

all of the romance, none of the bullshit

Women Using Words

a place for women loving women books and audiobooks

Elaine Burnes

Thoughts on Writing and Life

Reads Rainbow

reviews, releases and recommendations

thedrabble.wordpress.com/

Shortness of Breadth

Whatever

FURIOUSLY REASONABLE

M A G P I E à la modus operandi

Memories by Marguerite Quantaine

#HOPEJAHRENSURECANWRITE

books and things.

Zestful Writing

Thoughts on Writing and Life

Irrelevant Cyberspeak

because you don't have anything better to do...

Miz Chef

Cooking Up a Healthy Life

Ruth Perkinson

Author & Spiritual Teacher

Nicola Griffith

Writer. Queer cripple with a PhD. Seattle & Leeds.

Writer Unboxed

about the craft and business of fiction

Blackadder Blogs

Jesse Blackadder on writing, books, life.