When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was my favorite day of the year. We had our large extended family gathering at my grandmother’s Victorian-style home in Boise. Good food, all my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and that night, Santa would come. I sometimes think he’s part of the reason I have the values I...
Tag: artists
What is Your Standing Rock – Your Passion?
I write a lot in this blog about passion, but it’s an overused word in our society. People will say, “I’m passionate about pizza” or “My passion is shopping.” But the definition of passion is “a strong and barely controlled emotion.” I seriously doubt that pizza makes you feel like you are coming out of...
Holiday Inspiration for Your Creative Self
Are you feeling the holi-daze? Finding it hard to keep up during this busy season, and feeling frustrated because your artistic work may be taking a back seat? Me too. So I’m posting this video I created to help writers stay in touch with their creative sides during this stressful (but joyful) time of year....
Is This Real?
Have you ever been watching TV or reading a novel and found yourself talking to the characters? “Stop!” you shout. “You’re making a big mistake.” Your spouse or roommate laughs and says, “Relax. It’s not real.” Is that true, though? Because your heart raced. You felt it. And your mind formed the words to speak,...
The Artist in Me Thanks the Artist in You
Today I’m grateful for the artists. The writers, poets, singers, musicians, dancers, actors, filmmakers, photographers, painters, sculptors, potters, weavers, architects, and craftsmen whose art is the axis on which this world turns. Without artists, we would have no understanding of cultures long gone. It is their pottery, cave paintings, and temples which we study to...
Artists, Immigrants, and Refugees in a Changing America
I don’t often re-run posts, but given the uptick of hate crimes against refugees, immigrants, and other marginalized groups, it felt important to reprint this post from September of 2015. 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...
How to Create Art When Your Heart is Broken
Some of the greatest songs and stories are created by artists who have suffered a major loss or break up. They channel all that pain, frustration, anger, confusion, disbelief, and sorrow into their creations, and we embrace those songs and stories because they speak to our suffering too. Other artists, when faced with heartbreak, drop...
Give Us Some Old-Time Suspense and Romance
The other day, my grown children and I were watching a 1939 Bob Hope movie, The Cat and The Canary, with my aunt. In it, the cast of characters is trapped in a creepy house with a killer. You know, it’s the type of movie where the secret passageway creaks open and a hand slides...
Did Bob Dylan Deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Someone recently asked what I thought about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. Opinions among writers on the internet is certainly divided. Some feel there are plenty of accolades and awards for songwriters, and that Dylan has achieved more than his fair share of fame and fortune from the music industry, and that...
Are You Living Your Art?
In late September, my cousin Geoffrey Beard passed away at the age of 54. He’d been battling a disease his whole life and fought it right up to the end. This was a man who passionately wanted to live and to live his art. And he did just that. Geoff was five years older than...