My husband was recently asked by his boss to retake the Myers-Briggs test. His result was ISFP, also known as “The Artist.” When he saw the word artist and read the description, it shocked him. He figured he must have done something wrong, so he had me watch as he retook the test. I did,...
Tag: art
The Lost Generation Found
I recently returned from a trip to Paris with a friend. We went on a literary walking tour in which our guide showed us the pubs and bistros where some of the most famous writers of the early 20th century gathered to write, debate, drink, celebrate, and argue. Writers like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ezra...
The Brilliance of Illness
It’s hard to be brilliant when you are sick. Remember when you were a kid and became ill, and your mother made a bed on the couch, turned on your favorite cartoons, made you chicken soup and told you everything was going to be better soon? Is it wrong that right now I wish I...
A Penny for Your Words
The Authors Guild recently released the results of their study on author incomes. They polled their nearly 1,700 members, most of whom are full-time or part-time authors. The results showed that 56% of respondents earn below the poverty level of $11,670 per year. And the medium income for authors has dropped 24% since 2009. They...
Who Will Tell the Refugees’ Stories?
When I was in college, I befriended a girl whose family members were refugees from Laos. She went by the name of Jenny because her teachers had deemed her real name too hard to pronounce. I learned it, though, and called her by that. I can still remember how to say it, though I can’t...
The Human Side of Celebrity with George Takei
Yes, this is a picture of actor/activist George Takei holding my children’s book, The No-No Boys! I heard him speak recently at the National Speakers Association convention. When he came out on stage, everyone expected him to talk about his role as Mr. Sulu on Star Trek or his pop culture persona or his enormous...
Greater Must Our Courage Be
I’ve been a Shakespeare buff all my life. There weren’t many cultural events in Boise when I was growing up, but we did have the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and my family went every summer. Two years ago, I was contemplating a major change in my business and feeling hesitant, no, scared, about whether I should...
Know Your Genre
Okay, this post is mostly for my writer friends, but if you love to read, you may find this topic of interest too! Click below to view my newest writing video from my YouTube channel. This one is on understanding the difference between various genres in literature. It’s a confusing topic for new writers, but...
The Hardest Easy Job
I attended the National Speakers Association convention this past weekend, and heard a presenter refer to speaking as one of the “hardest ‘easy’ jobs there is.” Made us all laugh. A friend of mine recently sought a speaker for a 30-minute keynote to kick off her event. When he quoted her a $5,000 fee, she...
You Can Say It All In a Glance
One of the things I love about being married is exchanging those “knowing glances” with my husband. They occur when, say, one of our kids has just declared with great conviction that he/she is going to do something we doubt they will actually follow through on. All we have to do is look at each...