I got some really good news this week. The American Library Association’s Booklist publication, which goes out to libraries, reviewed my latest novel, Charlotte’s Story, and gave it a star. Now, if you’re a Dr. Seuss fan, as I am, you might not think much of stars. The Sneetches is a book devoted to the debunking of the …Read More

    You know I can’t stay out of Bliss House for long, right? Even as I work on the 2016 Bliss House novel–THE ABANDONED HEART–and get ready for the release of CHARLOTTE’S STORY in October, I’m dreaming up more stories. So I took some time this summer to write you a short story. A …Read More

When I think of topics for this blog, I type them onto a green digital sticky note on my desktop. (Spoiler alert: Look for blogs on Perry Mason, portals, terra preta, copperhead snakes climbing trees, and the (puzzling) topic loosely known as “I’m going to make everything all right.” Whatever that means.) This topic was listed as …Read More

    Today BLISS HOUSE is officially one year old, and is now available in paperback! I dreamed a long time about writing this book–specifically ever since I read my first grown-up haunted house novel, THE SENTINEL, by Jeffrey Konvitz. Of course, I’d read JANE EYRE long before that, and the two together early solidified …Read More

    Taking long drives is one of my passions. It doesn’t matter if I’m alone or with someone else. Either way, I feel renewed as the highway unspools behind me. Traveling lets me divide my life into small, manageable sections, like a timeline of events that’s always moving forward. This weekend Husband and I returned …Read More

    I was never a huge Oprah Winfrey Show fan, mainly because I was just out of college and working long days when it first came on. A few years later I was a young mother at home, but I didn’t watch much daytime television because it felt like such an indulgence (except for my …Read More

  I came at writing the hard way. But I’m not special. Every writer comes to their work that way. Writing–fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenwriting–is difficult, and there is no single road to…I’m reluctant to finish with the word success because success always means different things to different people. Many writers start out quite young, pouring …Read More

  Chocolate Won’t Get You Unstuck: This Writer’s Internal Dialogue About Food.   Me: You have this weird habit that I don’t understand. Me, too: Which one? I have a lot of weird habits. Me: You’ll be sitting there at your desk, concentrating on a paragraph or a page or on whatever it is that …Read More

  I write about ghosts, so people often ask me if I believe in them. Of course I believe in ghosts. My real life experience with them is limited, I think, because I want it to be. Even though the one compelling experience I’ve had was pleasant and benign—a smiling, elderly man in a rumpled …Read More

Somewhere back in my years’ worth of blogs, I know I’ve written about Julia Cameron’s classic book on creativity, THE ARTIST’S WAY. It’s been a few years since I read the book and completed its intense series of exercises, but the habits I learned from it have stuck with me for the most part. One habit …Read More