Today is Veterans Day. Before it was Veterans Day, it was more commonly known as Armistice Day, a holiday set aside to commemorate the cessation of fighting during World War 1. The armistice was signed during the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. It’s also called Remembrance Day in...
Category: Artists/Creativity
My Perfect Place to Read and Create
A reader of this blog recently wrote to ask me how I would describe my perfect reading nook. Being a writer, she assumed I must also love to read. And I do! She described her own perfect place, which intrigued me. But when I went to respond to her, I realized I couldn’t identify just...
A Little Applause for the Audience, Please
I recently saw a touring production of the Broadway show, Something Rotten. It’s a hilarious story about two brother playwrights trying to compete with their rival, the great and popular William Shakespeare. Though written for anyone, the show has special appeal to musical theater and Shakespeare buffs. It’s full of references only we would get....
Does Your Gender (Male or Female) Inhibit Your Art?
Recently, I was interviewed for Veteran Voices: The Oral History Podcast. The show features people who tell veterans’ stories in creative and interesting ways, including oral historians, authors, poets, playwrights, videographers, photographers, etc. The host, Kevin Farkas, invited me to talk about my World War II novels, all of which are based on real people...
Should You Tell Your Story?
Last night, my husband and I went to a PechaKucha Night. These events are billed as showcasing “the art of concise presentations.” Presenters are allowed to show 20 slides for 20 seconds each and talk about those slides. The presentation advances automatically, so the speaker has to keep up. He/she can share ideas, work, passions,...
Home is Where the Art Is
I recently returned to my hometown of Boise, Idaho. My cousin and aunt were visiting from Houston and St. Louis respectively. Both enjoy great architecture and history, so we took them to the old section of Boise near downtown. We admired the architecture inside and outside of St. John’s Cathedral, the Capitol Building, The Egyptian...
What’s the View from Your Ladder – Revisited
I was recently inspired by a story of a young climber, Mike Price, who died in an accident on Mount Rainier. The story is told in my friend’s book, The Ledge: An Inspirational Story of Friendship and Survival. In one of his travel journals, Mike wrote that success is not defined by summiting the mountain,...
Who Said You’re Being Silly?
The other day, I was watching a YouTube video of Lynda Barry, painter, writer, cartoonist, playwright, editor and more. She told a story about watching a mother in a restaurant who was busy on her cell phone, while her four-year-old son tried to get her attention. When he couldn’t, he started playing with his food,...
I Wish I Had a Nothing Box
The other day, I watched a video in which a comedian talked about the differences between women’s brains and men’s brains. He explained how men keep each area of their lives in a separate mental box: job, money, wife, kids, etc. And those boxes never touch. Women, he said, have brains like a ball of...
Never Tell Me The Odds
The other day, I listened to a woman who was a 28-year survivor of cancer tell about the day she received her diagnosis. When the doctor gave her the bad news, she started to cry, of course. Then she asked, “What are my odds of survival?” “It’s just a number,” the doctor said. “Then don’t...