A friend and I were reminiscing yesterday about what people in Idaho called the “junk room”; that room in an unseen part of the house where the door was always closed and the smell of mothballs was ever-present. I had two favorite junk rooms. One was in my grandmother’s house, an upstairs bedroom piled pell-mell...
Since rewatching the broadcast of Come From Away—the Broadway musical now streaming on Apple TV— I’ve had the song “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” stuck in my head. We sang it often at mass when I was growing up, and I found it to be not only a beautiful melody, but wonderfully aspirational...
I was chatting with a good friend the other day about how much I feel I’ve changed since the pandemic. I’ve realized how many of my previous life decisions were dictated by FOMO (fear of missing out). Now, I’m making my decisions by taking a moment to lean in and decide whether my energy is...
I was conducting a virtual school visit with a fifth-grade class the other day, talking about my children’s books about World War II, each of which are inspired by real people I interviewed. I’d already explained to the kids I wasn’t alive during the war, so I was surprised when one boy asked, “Did you...
It seemed to me many of my friends were feeling more down than usual the past couple of weeks. Blame it on the weather or the fact that Mercury was in retrograde or the ever-present worries about the pandemic. One of my friends apologized for “complaining,” saying that since I write novels about World War...
A friend e-mailed the other day to say, “It must be hard for you this week. You always throw a big party on your birthday and, this year, it’s going to be so quiet.” Indeed. It’s the little things that make you realize how much our lives have changed. Take coffee, for example. In the...
I’ve always turned down invitations to join book clubs. Not because I don’t see the value in them and definitely not because I didn’t like the people inviting me, but because I always seem to have stacks of books of my own to read. Lately, though, I’ve found myself in three book groups. It so...
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...
“It’s not happy people who are thankful, it’s thankful people who are happy.” I found this quote on the internet the other day. A friend encouraged me to start a regular gratitude practice, and since I have, I’ve noticed that no matter how foul my mood, my gratitude practice lifts it every time. I tick...
Not to wax political, but it’s almost impossible for me not to talk about censorship this week. As many of my author friends are blogging about Banned Books Week, I’ve been taking note of a different type of censorship. Recently, high school students and teachers in several Denver schools walked out to protest a school...