In the Landow Creek fiction series, the main character, Ivory, discovers the benefits of herbs for more than culinary uses. Naturally, to make the story as realistic as possible, I drew from personal experience and research. One of the first herbs I remember learning about is yarrow. I was...

Today’s post varies a bit from my usual fiction writing or language topics, instead delving into a personal story. I am the proud owner of two recipe boxes from two different mothers.   What I find in these boxes are pieces of their lives. Recipes they each savored and wanted...

Time to separate a bit of fact from fiction. The main character in my Landow Creek book series started her professional life as a sous chef or line cook in Chicago. Her dream was to open her own tapas bar in the city, but that future changed the moment...

I sat in class with my eighth – grade head on the table. I was ashamed. Dread climbed up from my stomach and formed a knot in my throat as I anticipated telling my parents about the D grade I had just received in art. I was a straight-A...

Until it did, now I’m a believer. In writing circles, there is a story that Jerry Seinfeld writes a joke every day and afterward makes a big X through the date on a calendar. He makes forward progress in his craft by not wanting to break the chain of...

I live, as I suspect many writers do, somewhere in between the siren and the muse. Remember the Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey? Just outside my studio door lurks a siren. She wears the colors of Facebook, television, and mindless reading. She uses a lullaby to entice me back under...

Today, I’m sharing a glimpse behind the curtain into my novel writing process. As a writer, I’m always interested in how others do their work—always looking for new and improved ways to get words on the page. I used to feel guilt and shame over using so many analog...

“Gonna” is my most recent pet peeve. I’ve been a reader since the summer my dad pulled a fifth-grade reader from his bookshelf for me. Plowing through that compilation of stories, I found a world opened to me far from the small farm where we lived. Since that day,...

Our self-told stories make up our lives. They were gifts wrapped in imagination, inspiration, excitement, pain, and heartache. Gifts given by thousands of writers. Gifts just waiting to be opened. — Ellery Adams in The Secret, Book & Scone Society. These lines in a book I read grabbed me....

Anyone who knows me even the slightest bit, is fully aware of my affection for cats. Even the farm was named for the number of cats who moved to this acreage with us: Five Feline Farm. Writers have a special relationship with cats. Ernest Hemingway had his six-toed cats...