When my children and I drove to Florida for their Spring Break, we talked, as the miles rolled beneath us, about seeing their grandmother, and their grandmother’s dog Buddy—a dog who is beloved to Magdalena and Teo, who has been beloved to M & T since they were toddlers. (Buddy earned an acknowledgement in my [...]
What I love about Milwaukee: the art museum on the lake, especially the Folk Art there. The lake itself, a force to be reckoned with. Paul CeBar & the Milwaukeens. The brats, beer, borscht, and Alterra Coffee, especially when enjoyed at Alterra Café at the Lake. But now I love Milwaukee for a whole new reason. [...]
Let it be known: I have driven my children BY MY SELF to Florida to see their grandma (I’ll drive them home again in a few days, God willing). It’s the first time I’ve driven such a stint; I feel more than a little emboldened. Also sunburned. I feel that. In fact I’m lobster-red, a [...]
So on a day when the snowflakes are as big as any I’ve ever seen, I’ve made a warm fire, the better to write the news, now that I’ve written the 1,000 words I needed to generate today for my novel-that’s-almost-done-but-not-quite-and-so-I-must-persevere-to-make-the-deadline. Here’s the news. While He Was Away is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book [...]
This past Friday ended my 7 month stint as a freelance writer at Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide. While there I did a lot of work on a content hub for DeVry University. The hub is called Know How for a New Tomorrow. I like to think that President Obama, with his focus on STEM-education, would approve. It [...]
I sometimes wonder what my mother would say if she knew that her story—one of the saddest, sweetest love stories I’ve ever heard—was retold in a new way in my young adult novel, While He Was Away. Now Sourcebooks Fire is sharing the story yet again, in a second, exclusive edition, released nation-wide at Walmart. The fact that Sourcebooks believed enough [...]
Happy 2013! For me, 2012 was a memorable year: lots of powerful good, and powerful challenges, too. I am more than ready to release the old (or find reconciliation), and embrace the new that this year holds. Part of what’s new for me includes a brand new second edition of While He Was Away. I’m [...]
The quaint gray house across the way with its peaked roof and moss-covered wooden shingles is abandoned. For the last few days, the firefighters—eight of them—have converged with their trucks in front of the house to train for the job they do. They are there now, in their bulky black suits with the bright stripes [...]
I’ve let my blog go. I almost wrote: I’ve let my body go. Well, there’s that too. The last swatch of time has been filled with other kinds of writing: since July I’ve been working fulltime, freelancing as an advertising copywriter, commuting for about three hours a day to get to the office. I’ve also [...]
194 pages. Off the first half of my novel goes to my editor! Whoosh. First deadline met. Second to be met in February. There was a big, beautiful peach of a harvest moon hanging low in the eastern sky tonight, and in the west a wild, red horizon. I’ll take this as a good sign. [...]