Amy Snow Tracey Rees Simon & Schuster Life just seems to move at a slower pace in the summer. Afternoons are hot and humid, the evenings languid. We spend a lot of time on the deck and not so much time in front of the television. It’s a time when we try to break free from …
My goal was De Smet–850 long miles from home–where I’d visit Little Town on the Prairie, The Long Winter, and By the Shores of Silver Lake sites. But I sure couldn’t travel that far without a stop along the way to the banks of Plum Creek. The small town of Walnut Grove, namesake of the TV …
She clutched Richie’s hand, held on, it seemed, for dear life. She pleaded. He tried to smooth her still fingers, then patted them reassuringly. “You ARE home, Momo.” “No–I’ve got to go home. Now. Help me, honey–where did they put my clothes? Trudy needs me.” So he lugged her suitcase from the top shelf …
Last year I started using my Chromebook for most things webbish. I liked the quick and easy access to the internet–and since I don’t do anything fancy like gaming or film editing, a Chromebook can meet just about all my screen needs. Recently, I started attending a Writing Circle at a local studio and was a …
Today is day 19 of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. The challenge began with A on April 1 and continues the alphabet throughout the month, except on Sundays. My theme for the month will be this blog’s tagline: life, books, and all things bookish, so you can expect a little bit of this …
It was the first week of January, that time of new beginnings and fresh starts, when each year I look at the blank pages of a crisp new planner and think of all that I could fill it with: travels to far away places, appointments to beautify the winter-drab, trips to the gym to sculpt and …
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s shortest short story ever—For Sale: baby shoes, never worn—Six Word Memoirs were born nearly ten years ago. Publisher Larry Smith is their papa. Since then, Smith Magazine and media from The Colbert Report to NPR to The New Yorker to O! have published the little gems. Everyone, it seems, wants to …
Great interview with J. Ryan Stradal from NPR’s Here and Now–hear the author of Kitchens Of the Great Midwest. (He loves ambrosia salad and cookie bars, by the way!) Interviewer Robin Young says the novel is like “Prairie Home Companion with recipes”. Next up, listen to Stradal read an excerpt on The Dinner Party Download here.
I have long wanted to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House sites scattered around the Midwest and decided this summer was the time to start with a quick trip to Pepin, Wisconsin—which also, coincidentally enough, is the closest to my West Michigan home. One thing you should know about Little House Wayside, as the Little …
Circling the Sun (NetGalley) Paula McLain Ballantine Books There was a time when I thought I was born in the wrong time and place–a time when I dreamed I was meant to stand on the wide savanna scanning the horizon, when I thought I might have my own antelope calf as a pet and sit …
This is my symphony 