Happy to report that ONE FOR THE ARK was named a finalist in the International Book Awards for General Fiction, sponsored by the American Book Fest.  I enter contests in hopes that an agent/major publisher will notice, and to be able to offer this kind of “endorsement” to my indie-published works. I lose more than...Read More

Some time ago I discovered this YouTube concert and was enchanted by the music of a typewriter (which can never be replaced by a computer keyboard), but forgot to post it.  Happy spring! And happy typing!Read More

So happy to announce that my short story, Herbert Saffir, Measurer of Hurricanes,” has been published in the current issue of Ars Medica, a Canadian arts-and-healing journal.  You can read it online here.   It is personally meaningful to me since my mother, Mary Jo Hutchings, suffered from Alzheimers.  This is the second story of mine about the...Read More

My reading list for our January cruise to Hawaii and Mexico was longer than my ability to stay “awoke.”  Cruising on the Westerdam with Holland America is way too relaxing!  Did manage to read a few books: Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett, the author we are studying in my workshop with Fred Shafer.  Lots of characters, lots of...Read More

  Thank you, Cubbies, for this lesson in authorship and how to create something great:  STAY IN THE MOMENT.  Now might be a good time, too, to read a baseball-themed mystery.  How about something by G.W. Kennedy?            Read More

We had the chance this week to celebrate with Erin Goseer Mitchell the publication of her second book, From Colored to Black, A Bittersweet Journey (Ampersand, 2016).  At a reading we hosted for her, one guest called it a chance to meet “living history.”  She read a story called “Grandma Tucker’s Red Piano,” and he...Read More

I recently attended the Oswego Literary Festival at the beautiful Oswego Library District Oswego Campus.  Forty-six authors were there to hawk their works, but I doubt that we sold 46 books among us.  This could be depressing.  OK, it is depressing.  But we still made lemonade.Read More

“Lassie,” “Maude,” and “The Monkees” TV shows all premiered on this day, proving–if it needed proving–that, as T.C. Boyle says, “anything can make a story,” and there is, indeed, an audience for everything. Looking forward to meeting you, the audience for my next novel, One for the Ark, officially launching next week. Who I think...Read More

Pleased to announce that two of my submissions were finalists in the William Wisdom William Faulkner Writing Competition sponsored by Pirates Alley Faulkner Society, New Orleans.  HARMONY’S PEACE & JOY, my current novel-in-progress, was a finalist in that category, and  my historical novel, FREE LOVE, was a finalist in the unpublished novel category.  My short...Read More

What’s in a name? This is the 25th anniversary of the restoration of the name of Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great in 1703.   For 67 years, the city was known as Leningrad in honor of the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir I. Lenin. At the beginning of WWI the...Read More